Abstract
A highly accurate method for measuring beam properties in a variable-shaped electron beam (VSB) system has been developed. This method is based on a knife-edge method with a solid-state detector (SSD) and scattering apertures. In VSB system, it is necessary to measure both beam profile and beam position for a long time. To meet this requirement, many aperture marks on a silicon membrane were prepared in a measurement unit. Using this unit, the accuracy and stability of beam-size and beam position measurements were evaluated in VBS system (HL-7000D, Hitachi-HITEC). As a result, the repeatability error for beam size was obtained to be smaller than 2 nm (3σ) and the repeatability error for beam position was obtained to be 0.82 nm (3σ). Moreover, a multitude of repeat experiments showed that this measurement unit can be used for more than ten years. Consequently, it was confirmed that this measurement method is useful for the high accuracy of a VSB system.