Patent ID: 8399831

Claim:
A method of milling and imaging a work piece, the work piece showing a surface, the method comprising: placing the work piece in an evacuated environment; directing a focused particle beam to the surface, such that the beam impinges on the work piece substantially parallel to the face of the work piece; scanning said beam over the surface in a predetermined pattern to irradiate points of the work piece, thereby milling the work piece, wherein the irradiated points form a single curve that is repeatedly scanned, and wherein during each scan material is milled from a different distance from the surface; acquiring a signal from a detector detecting radiation emerging from the work piece in response to the particle beam impinging on the work piece, and storing data derived from the signal for the multiple scans of the curve over the work piece in a computer memory, the data thus forming a representation of a face of the work piece, as a result of which the face is in one direction defined by the direction of the beam of particles and in the other direction defined along the curve.