/Automatic Electron Beam Calibration On Periodic Nanostructures
Abstract

Systems, methods, and media for calibrating a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The system includes a processor and a memory. The memory stores instructions that, when executed by the processor, configure the system to perform operations. An electron microscope image of a periodic structure is generated by the SEM. A Fourier transform of the electron microscope image is computed to generate a spectrum. Reciprocal lattice vectors are computed based on a known periodicity of the periodic structure. A pixel mask is generated based on the reciprocal lattice vectors and applied to filter the spectrum. A quality metric is generated based on an aggregate magnitude of the filtered spectrum and a magnitude of a zero-frequency component of the filtered spectrum. A pixel scaling parameter, focus parameter, and/or stigmation parameter of the SEM are determined based on the quality metric.

Full Text

What is claimed is:

Systems, methods, and media for calibrating a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The system includes a processor and a memory. The memory stores instructions that, when executed by the processor, configure the system to perform operations. An electron microscope image of a periodic structure is generated by the SEM. A Fourier transform of the electron microscope image is computed to generate a spectrum. Reciprocal lattice vectors are computed based on a known periodicity of the periodic structure. A pixel mask is generated based on the reciprocal lattice vectors and applied to filter the spectrum. A quality metric is generated based on an aggregate magnitude of the filtered spectrum and a magnitude of a zero-frequency component of the filtered spectrum. A pixel scaling parameter, focus parameter, and/or stigmation parameter of the SEM are determined based on the quality metric.
Timeline
Filed
03/20/2026
Published
07/23/2026
Granted
Not Available
IPC Codes(5)
H01J 37/22:Optical or photographic arrangements associated with the tube
G06T 3/40:Scaling of whole images or parts thereof, e.g. expanding or contracting
G06T 5/10:using non-spatial domain filtering