Patent Number: 
Section: abstract

A charged particle beam apparatus for acquiring high-definition and highly contrasted observation images by detecting efficiently secondary signals without increasing aberration of the primary electron beam, detecting defects from observation images and thus increasing the inspection speed and enhancing the sensitivity of inspection. The desired area of the sample is scanned with a primary charged particle beam, and the secondary charged particles generated secondarily from the area by the irradiation of the primary charged particle beam are led to collide with the secondary electron conversing electrode, and then the secondary electrons generated by the first E×B deflector 31 arranged through an insulator on the surface of the secondary electron conversing electrode on the side of the sample is absorbed by the detector. At the same time, the deflection chromatic aberration that had been generated in the primary charged particle beam by the first E×B deflector is reduced by the second E×B deflector arranged on the first E×B deflector, to obtain high-definition and highly contrasted observation images free of shading.