Patent Document ID: 9799485
Application ID: 14730505
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of operating a multi-beam particle optical unit, the multi-beam particle optical unit comprising at least two particle-optical components through which a plurality of particle beams pass, the at least two particle-optical components having a settable effect on the plurality of particle beams, the method comprising: (1) providing a first setting of effects of the at least two particle-optical components so that the particle beams are used to image a first plane into a second plane, the imaging of the first plane onto the second plane being characterizable by at least two parameters; (2) determining a matrix A so that: 
 {right arrow over (Δ p 1 )}= A ·{right arrow over (Δ w 1 )}; 
 {right arrow over (Δ w 1 )}={right arrow over ( w 1 )}−{right arrow over ( w 1 )}; 
 {right arrow over (Δ p 1 )}={right arrow over (Δ p 1 )}−{right arrow over ( p )}, wherein: {right arrow over (w 1 )} is a vector having components w 1 1 , w 2 1 ,. .. , w n 1 ; n is the number of particle-optical components and each of the components w l 1 represents a value of an effect of one of the particle-optical components in the case of the first setting; {right arrow over (w)} is a vector having components w 1 , w 2 ,. .. , w n representing the values of the effects of the particle-optical components in the case of a setting different from the first setting; {right arrow over (p 1 )} is a vector having components p 1 1 , p 2 1 ,. .. , p m 1 ; m is the number of parameters characterizing the particle optical imaging of the first plane onto the second plane, and each of the components p i 1 represents a value of one of the parameters in the case of the first setting; and {right arrow over (p)} is a vector having components p 1 , p 2 ,. .. , p m representing the values of the parameters in the case of the setting different from the first setting; (3) determining a matrix S so that S·A=D A , D A being a diagonal matrix; (4) defining values of parameters which characterize a desired imaging of the first plane onto the second plane; and (5) providing a second setting of the effects of the particle-optical components so that the imaging of the first plane onto the second plane is characterizable by the parameters having the defined values, the effects required for the second setting being determined in accordance with: 
 {right arrow over (Δ w 2 )}= S ·{right arrow over (Δ p 2 )} with 
 {right arrow over (Δ w 2 )}={right arrow over ( w 2 )}−{right arrow over ( w 1 )} and 
 {right arrow over (Δ p 2 )}={right arrow over ( p 2 )}−{right arrow over ( p 1 )} {right arrow over (w 2 )} is a vector having components w 1 2 , w 2 2 ,. .. , w n 2 representing the values of the effects of the particle-optical components in the case of the second setting; and {right arrow over (p 2 )} is a vector having components p 1 2 , p 2 2 ,. .. , p m 2 representing the defined values of the parameters.