Patent ID: 8890093

Claim:
A charged particle beam apparatus comprising: a charged particle beam column configured to irradiate a surface of a sample with a charged particle beam; a detector configured to detect the amount of secondary particles emitted from the surface of the sample by the irradiation of the charged particle beam; and an image forming section configured to form an observation image of the surface of the sample based on the detected amount of the secondary particles, wherein the charged particle beam column is configured to irradiate the surface of the sample corresponding to a unit area of the observation image with the charged particle beam, wherein the charged particle beam apparatus further comprises a relative position detection unit configured to detect a relative position of the charged particle beam column and the sample, and wherein the image forming section is configured to: specify an irradiation position of the charged particle beam based on the detected relative position of the charged particle beam column and the sample; and set luminance of the unit area of the observation image based on the specified irradiation position of the charged particle beam and the detected amount of the secondary particles.