Patent Document ID: 8358832
Application ID: 13285229
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for high accuracy beam placement and navigation to a feature of interest within a local area on a sample surface, comprising: loading a sample into a sample imaging system employing a moveable sample stage, said sample imaging system including computer hardware and non-transitory computer memory storing computer instructions embodying a computer program; acquiring a first image of a local area on the sample surface using the sample imaging system at a first field of view, the first image including the location of a feature of interest and one or more alignment points near the feature of interest; registering the first image with a coordinate system overlay with the computer program using a plurality of alignment points in the first image and corresponding idealized elements in the coordinate system overlay; identifying one or more transfer fiducials in the first image, wherein said transfer fiducials comprise unique visible features on the sample surface that can be easily identified; recording, with the computer program, the offset between the one more transfer fiducials and the corresponding idealized elements in the coordinate system overlay; acquiring a second image of the sample surface using the sample imaging system at a second field of view, said second field of view being smaller than the first field of view and including the feature of interest and the one or more transfer fiducials; identifying the one or more transfer fiducials in the second image; using the recorded offset between the one or more transfer fiducials and corresponding idealized elements in the coordinate system overlay to precisely navigate the sample imaging system to the location of the feature of interest.