Patent ID: 8513602
Filing Date: 2013-08-20
Classification: H01J

Abstract:
1. A focused ion beam apparatus comprising: an emitter having a sharp-pointed tip, and having a pyramidal crystal structure at the tip; a gas source which supplies gas to the periphery of the emitter; a cooling unit which cools the emitter; a heating unit which locally heats the tip of the emitter to perform a rearrangement of atoms that constitute the emitter; an extraction electrode disposed apart from the tip of the emitter; an extraction power source unit that applies an extraction voltage between the emitter and the extraction electrode to ionize the gas into gas ions at the tip of the emitter, and then extract the gas ions towards the extraction electrode; a beam optical system that forms the extracted gas ions into a focused ion beam, and then radiates the focused ion beam onto a sample; an on-board image acquiring mechanism having optical components positionable in the ion beam that acquire an FIM image of the tip of the emitter from the focused ion beam; and a control unit having a display unit which displays the acquired FIM image, and having a storage unit which stores the FIM image, wherein a guide image which includes an ideal crystal structure of the tip of the emitter is stored in advance in the storage unit, and wherein the control unit displays the guide image on the display unit as an overlapping image of a luminescence spot of the acquired FIM image.