Abstract: The invention aims at reducing the movement of an operator to improve the operability. A vacuum chamber door is provided on the front side of a vacuum chamber, and sample holders are connected to the vacuum chamber door through a rotation shaft and a disk. An ion source is detachably mounted on the right side of the vacuum chamber, and a control panel is provided on the left side of the vacuum chamber. The vacuum chamber door is supported by a linearly reciprocally-moving mechanism so as to be drawn away from the vacuum chamber. An operation surface of the vacuum chamber door and an operation surface of the control panel are disposed substantially in a common plane.

Abstract: When neutralized plasma is generated, the cylindrical electrode 8 is set at a negative potential against the processing chamber 23 by the DC power source 18, so that ions 23 in the neutralized plasma can be collected at the cylindrical electrode 8. Electrons 24 equal to the collected ion charge can be supplied uniformly toward the ion beam 25. Therefore, by allowing the cylindrical electrode to collect ions, the ion collection area can be spread easily, and only by generating neutralized plasma of low density, a sufficient volume of ions can be collected surely from the plasma and a sufficient volume of electrons can be supplied to the ion beam 25 at the same time.

Abstract: An ion beam processing apparatus which processes specimens held by a specimen holder in a vacuum vessel by irradiating the specimen with an ion beam. The apparatus includes a raising/lowering device for raising and lowering the specimen holder. When replacing the processed specimen by an unprocessed specimen, the specimen holder is raised and lowered by the raising/lowering device to effect specimen replacement. Due to this arrangement, specimen replacement can be performed automatically without opening the vacuum vessel to atmospheric air thereby increasing productivity.