Abstract: There is disclosed a charged particle beam device which judges whether or not an image based on a dark-field signal has an appropriate atomic number contrast. Input reference information, a bright-field image or a back-scattered electron image is compared with a dark-field image, and it is judged whether or not a correlation value between them or the dark-field image has a predetermined contrast. According to such a constitution, it is possible to obtain information by which it is judged whether or not the dark-field image has an appropriate atomic number contrast.

Abstract: There is disclosed a charged particle beam device which judges whether or not an image based on a dark-field signal has an appropriate atomic number contrast. Input reference information, a bright-field image or a back-scattered electron image is compared with a dark-field image, and it is judged whether or not a correlation value between them or the dark-field image has a predetermined contrast. According to such a constitution, it is possible to obtain information by which it is judged whether or not the dark-field image has an appropriate atomic number contrast.

Abstract: The surface of a specimen such as a semiconductor wafer is processed and analyzed by the irradiator of the surface with an ion beam. The zone of the specimen to be processed and analyzed is kept by heating at a temperature higher than the melting point of an element or compound forming the ion species used for the irradiation. The means used for this heating may be an electron beam source, a light source, a resistance heating source, or a high-frequency heating source.

Abstract: An ion source is disclosed in which a crucible for holding an ion source material is provided with an aperture in its bottom wall, an emitter chip is disposed within the crucible in a coaxial manner so that the edge of the emitter chip passes through the aperture, a semi-closed crucible made of a conductive material and having the form of a circular cone is disposed in the vicinity of the tip of the emitter chip so as to be coaxial with the emitter chip and to have the same electric potential as the emitter chip, a filament for emitting an electron beam is disposed in the vicinity of the emitter chip, an ion extracting electrode is disposed at a place which is a little spaced apart from the tip of the emitter chip, and a lid is inserted into the ion source material holding part so as to be placed on the above-mentioned semi-closed crucible, thereby preventing the ion source material from being scattered by evaporation.