Patent ID: 7926328

Claim:
A sample manipulating apparatus which does manipulation for a sample mounted on a surface of a substrate, the sample manipulating apparatus comprising: a stage of fixing the substrate; tweezers comprising an observing probe and a grasping probe contiguously arranged in a state of being spaced apart from each other by a predetermined gap and respectively having styluses arranged opposedly to each other at the surface of the substrate at front ends thereof; moving means for moving the substrate and the tweezers relatively in a direction parallel with the surface of the substrate and a direction orthogonal to the surface of the substrate; oscillating means for oscillating the observing probe by a predetermined frequency and a predetermined amplitude; displacement measuring means for measuring a displacement of the observing probe; probe driving means for moving the grasping probe to a side of the observing probe to make the two probes proximate to each other more than the predetermined gap; and controlling means for controlling the moving means, the oscillating means and the probe driving means; wherein the controlling means acquires at least position data and shape data of the sample by observing the sample by an AFM observation of oscillating the observing probe, thereafter, positions the tweezers by the moving means such that the sample is positioned between the observing probe and the grasping probe based on the two data, after positioning, sets a height of the tweezers at a position remote from the surface of the substrate by a constant distance by the moving means while monitoring a result of measurement by the displacement measuring means, thereafter, moves the grasping probe to the side of the observing probe by the probe driving means while monitoring the result of measurement by the displacement measuring means at the set height, and causes the sample to be grasped while detecting a grasping start point.