Patent ID: 9202672
Filing Date: 2015-12-01
Classification: H01J

Abstract:
1. An ion beam apparatus comprising: an ion beam optical system irradiating a sample with an ion beam; a probe capable of touching the sample, wherein the probe is provided to deliver a fine piece of the sample; a probe driving unit driving the probe; a probe current detection unit detecting incoming current into the probe; and a central processing unit controlling the ion beam optical system and the probe in order to create a fine sample from the sample, wherein the central processing unit is configured to perform: a probe shape generation process of detecting a probe shape based on the probe incoming current detected by the probe current detection unit to obtain a probe image, a probe tip coordinate extraction process of detecting a tip position of the probe from the probe shape, a probe contour line extraction process of generating a probe contour line obtained by approximating a contour of the probe from the tip position of the probe and the probe shape, a processing pattern generation process of generating a processing pattern based on the probe tip position and a preset shape and dimension of a probe acute part, an ion-beam irradiation process of performing irradiation with an ion beam based on the processing pattern and removing a robe within a region of the processing pattern; an ion beam termination process of performing, based on the processing pattern, termination of ion-beam processing, and a processing pattern generation rerun process of rotating the probe after removing, by the ion-beam processing, a processing pattern region which is provided on both sides of the probe image obtained by the probe shape generation process, to rerun the processes from the probe shape generation process to the ion beam termination process, thereby performing a probe restoration process.