Patent ID: 7612337

Claim:
A focused ion beam system comprising: an ion beam source which generates an ion beam; a detector for obtaining surface structure information and either internal structure information or internal composition information about a sample based on the result of scanning the sample with an electron beam, wherein each information is obtained from the same field of view as a processing region which is set on the sample based on a secondary electron image obtained by scanning ion excitation of the sample; and a processor for generating an image in which the surface structure information and internal structure information or internal composition information that is acquired of the sample are superposed, wherein then a processing position of the sample is set based on the superposed image and the sample is processed using a focused ion beam, and wherein the detector detects a secondary electron image based on scanning electron or scanning ion excitation and wherein the internal structure information or internal composition information about the sample is obtained using at least one of an energy dispersive X-ray spectroscope (EDX), an electron energy loss spectroscope (EELS) and a transmission electron detector, as the detector.