Patent ID: 7375328

Claim:
A charged particle beam apparatus wherein an image is generated by irradiating a sample with a charged particle beam and detecting secondary charged particles emitted from the sample, comprising: a preparatory evacuation chamber into which the sample is conveyed, and which is preliminarily evacuated; an ultraviolet irradiation unit which is disposed in said preparatory evacuation chamber, and which irradiates a surface of the sample conveyed into said preparatory evacuation chamber, with ultraviolet rays for a predetermined time period; and a sample chamber into which the sample is conveyed from said preparatory evacuation chamber with a gate valve between said preparatory evacuation chamber and said sample chamber opened in the preliminarily evacuated state of said preparatory evacuation chamber in order to observe the image, and from which the sample is conveyed into said preparatory evacuation chamber after the image observation; wherein the ultraviolet irradiation of the sample in said preparatory evacuation chamber by said ultraviolet irradiation unit is performed before the conveyance of the sample into said sample chamber, or/and after the conveyance thereof from said sample chamber, thereby to remove contamination on the surface of the sample.