US 12,431,324 B2
Multi-beam digital scan and image acquisition
Nicolas Kaufmann, Aalen (DE); Andreas Adolf, Aalen (DE); Volker Wieczorek, Neu-Ulm (DE); Nico Kaemmer, Koenigsbronn (DE); Christof Riedesel, Aalen (DE); and Stefan Schubert, Oberkochen (DE)
Assigned to Carl Zeiss MultiSEM GmbH, Oberkochen (DE)
Filed by Carl Zeiss MultiSEM GmbH, Oberkochen (DE)
Filed on Jul. 19, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/813,518.
Application 17/813,518 is a continuation of application No. PCT/EP2021/052293, filed on Feb. 1, 2021.
Claims priority of application No. 102020102779.6 (DE), filed on Feb. 4, 2020; and application No. 102020213952.0 (DE), filed on Nov. 6, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2022/0351936 A1, Nov. 3, 2022
Int. Cl. H01J 37/28 (2006.01); H01J 37/147 (2006.01); H01J 37/22 (2006.01); H01J 37/244 (2006.01); H01J 37/26 (2006.01)
CPC H01J 37/222 (2013.01) [H01J 37/1474 (2013.01); H01J 37/244 (2013.01); H01J 37/265 (2013.01); H01J 37/28 (2013.01); H01J 2237/1536 (2013.01); H01J 2237/226 (2013.01); H01J 2237/2448 (2013.01); H01J 2237/2803 (2013.01)] 22 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of operating a multi-beam charged particle microscope, the method comprising:
selecting a scan program from a plurality of scan programs;
generating, from the selected scan program: i) a first sequence of pre-compensation digital scan commands to pre-compensate a scanning induced distortion of the multi-beam charged particle microscope; and ii) a selection control signal;
generating, from the first sequence of pre-compensation digital scan commands, a first amplified sequence of drive voltages;
using the first amplified sequence of drive voltages to collectively deflect a plurality of primary charged particle beamlets generated by the multi-beam charged particle microscope over a plurality of image subfields of the multi-beam charged particle microscope on a surface of a sample in the multi-beam charged particle microscope;
collecting streams of fluctuating voltages from an image sensor unit of the multi-beam charged particle microscope;
converting the streams of fluctuating voltages;
using the selection control signal to control selection of the converted streams of fluctuating voltage to provide streams of digital image data values; and
using the selection control signal to control writing the streams of digital image data values into a parallel access memory at a plurality of memory locations to provide a plurality of digital image data corresponding to the plurality of image subfields.