Patent ID: 8822945

Claim:
A focused ion beam apparatus, comprising: an emitter; a heater for heating the emitter to regulate a temperature of the emitter; an ion source gas supply unit for supplying ion source gases of a plurality of gas types to the emitter; an extraction electrode that coacts with the emitter to form an electric field which ionizes the gas into gas ions on the emitter and that extracts the ions from the emitter; a lens system for focusing the ions; a specimen stage on which a specimen is to be placed, the specimen being irradiated with an ion beam focused by the lens system; a detector for detecting secondary charged particles emitted from the specimen; an image formation section for forming an observation image of the specimen from a detection signal of the detector; a display unit for displaying the observation image; an adjustment section for adjusting a contrast and a brightness of the observation image; a storage section for storing, for each of the plurality of gas types, a set temperature of the emitter, a gas pressure of corresponding one of the ion source gases, an extraction voltage to be applied to the extraction electrode, a set value of the contrast, and a set value of the brightness; an input section for selecting a gas type from the plurality of gas types and inputting the selected gas type; and a control section for reading out, from the storage section, the set temperature, the gas pressure, the extraction voltage, and the set value of the contrast and the set value of the brightness, which correspond to the input gas type, and respectively setting the heater, the ion source gas supply unit, the extraction electrode, and the adjustment section, wherein the ion source gas supply unit comprises a plurality of gas nozzles each for supplying a different ion source gas to the emitter, and a gas control section that is controlled by the control section to control the gas flow through the gas nozzles based on the input gas type.