Patent · US Active

Method of automatically focusing a charged particle beam on a surface region of a sample, method of calculating a converging set of sharpness values of images of a charged particle beam device and charged particle beam device for imaging a sample

US11610755B2 · kind B2 · utility

0Cited by

2References

22Claims

0Family size

Assignee

Applied Materials, Inc. · US

Inventors

Robert Trauner · Pliening, DE
Bernhard Schuler · Austin, US
Bernhard Mueller · Finsing, DE
Nikolai KNAUB · Munich, DE
Kulpreet Singh VIRDI · Munich, DE

Key dates

Filing date	Oct 21, 2021
Grant date	Mar 21, 2023
Priority date	—
Expiry date	Oct 21, 2041

Classification

Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
CPC primaryH01J2237/216
WIPO fieldElectrical machinery, apparatus, energy
WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method of automatically focusing a charged particle beam on a surface region of a sample is provided. The method includes acquiring a plurality of images for a corresponding plurality of focusing strength values; calculating a plurality of sharpness values based on the plurality of images, the plurality of sharpness values are calculated with a sharpness function provided as a sum in a frequency space based on the plurality of images; and determining subsequent focusing strength values of the plurality of focusing strength values with a golden ratio search algorithm based one the calculated sharpness values.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.