Electron optics of multi-beam scanning electron microscope

We have developed a multi-beam scanning electron microscope (MBSEM), which delivers a square array of 196 focused beams onto a sample with a resolution and current per beam comparable to a state of the art single beam SEM. It consists of a commercially available FEI Nova-nano 200 SEM column equipped with a novel multi-electron beam source module. The key challenge in the electron optical design of the MBSEM is to minimize the off-axial aberrations of the lenses. This article addresses the electron optical design of the system and presents the result of optics simulations for a specific setting of the system. It is shown that it is possible to design a system with a theoretical axial spot size of 1.2 nm at 15 kV with a probe current of 26 pA. The off-axial aberrations for the outermost beam add up 0.8 nm, increasing the probe size to 1.5 nm.