Patent ID: 7982186

Claim:
A method of raster scanning a sample on a continuously moving stage for charged-particle beam imaging said sample, comprising: line scanning a charged-particle beam across a surface of said sample repeatedly to form thereon at least one 2-dimensional line array composed of a plurality of scan lines lying adjacent to each other, each line array having a parallelogram shape with one of its parallel-edge pairs (or extension lines thereof) intersecting the axis of stage movement, the distance along the axis of stage movement between the intersection points being referred to as the image width, wherein when each line scan is to be performed, said charged-particle beam is shifted, along the stage-moving direction, by an extra predefined distance at least equal to a distance of said stage travel during a time period from the beginning of the first line scan of the first formed line array to the beginning of the current line scan to be performed of the current line array being formed, and wherein said at least one line array forms an image of said sample surface.