Multi-source charged particle illumination apparatus

1. A multi-source illumination apparatus for illuminating a sample with charged particles, the apparatus comprising:

a condenser lens arranged to receive beams from a plurality of sources, each source arranged to emit a beam of charged particles; and

a manipulator array arrangement configured to receive beams that have passed through the condenser lens,

wherein:

the beams are arranged such that, at a plane of the condenser lens, a beam from at least one source intersects with at least part of one other beam from a different one of the plurality of sources;

the condenser lens is configured to separately substantially collimate the received beams from each source; and

the manipulator array arrangement is configured to manipulate the beams that have been substantially collimated by the condenser lens to generate one or more beams, in a single column, that comprise charged particles from the plurality of sources, the manipulator array arrangement comprising a multi-beam generator configured to:

receive the plurality of substantially collimated beams; and

generate a multi-beam of sub-beams in dependence on each of the received plurality of substantially collimated beams.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the manipulator array arrangement is configured to manipulate at least one of the sub-beams, the manipulator array arrangement being configured to manipulate the at least one sub-beam by applying, to the at least sub-beam, one or more selected from: a focus, deflection, change of cross-sectional shape and/or blanking.

3. The apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the multi-beam is a rectangular, square, rhombic or hexagonal array of sub-beams.

4. The apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising a coulomb aperture array, wherein:

the coulomb aperture array is arranged in paths of the beams between the plurality of sources and the condenser lens; and

the coulomb aperture array is arranged to receive a single beam from one or more of the sources and, for each received single beam, to output a multi-beam in dependence on the received single beam, with each output multi-beam by the coulomb aperture array comprising a plurality of sub-beams of charged particles, such that the condenser lens receives and substantially collimates one or more multi-beams and the manipulator array arrangement manipulates one or more multi-beams.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the manipulator array arrangement comprises a deflector array arranged to deflect the beams that have been substantially collimated by the condenser lens to generate a plurality of substantially parallel substantially collimated beams, for receipt by the multi-beam generator, that comprise charged particles from the plurality of sources, wherein the multi-beam of sub-beams comprises a plurality of substantially collimated sub-beams.

6. The apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein a beam from each source intersects in the plane of the condenser lens with a beam from each of the other sources.

7. The apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein beams from a plurality of sources intersect at a mid-point in the plane of the condenser lens.

8. The apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising a controller configured to control an emission current of emitted beam of charged particles by the respective source.

9. The apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising a controller configured to control an emission opening angle of the respective source.

10. The apparatus according to claim 1 , configured such that two or more of the sources are arranged symmetrically about a charged particle optical axis of the apparatus.

11. The apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising the sources and wherein all of the sources are arranged in a plane that is substantially orthogonal to a charged particle optical axis of the apparatus.

12. The apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the manipulator array arrangement has a beam input and the beam from each source is arranged such that, at the beam input and in a plane that is substantially orthogonal to a charged particle optical axis, an illumination area of a beam from a source substantially abuts one or more other illumination areas of one or more beams from one or more other sources.

13. A multi-beam inspection and/or metrology tool comprising:

the multi-source illumination apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the multi-source illumination apparatus is arranged to illuminate a sample; and

a detector arranged to detect charged particles received from the illuminated sample.

14. A multi-beam lithography tool comprising the multi-source illumination apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the multi-source illumination apparatus is arranged to illuminate a resist on a substrate.

15. A method of generating one or more beams of charged particles for illuminating a sample, the method comprising:

emitting, by each source of a plurality of sources, a beam of charged particles such that the beams at least partially intersect;

substantially collimating the beams from each source at position along a charged particle optical axis where the beams at least partially intersect; and

manipulating the substantially collimated beams to generate one or more beams, in a single column, that comprise charged particles from the plurality of sources, the manipulating comprising:

receiving the plurality of substantially collimated beams, and then

generating a multi-beam of sub-beams in dependence on each of the received plurality of substantially collimated beams.

16. The method of claim 15 , further comprising deflecting the substantially collimated beams to generate a plurality of substantially parallel substantially collimated beams that comprise charged particles from the plurality of sources, wherein the multi-beam comprises a plurality of substantially collimated sub-beams.

17. A multi-source illumination apparatus for generating a multi-beam of charged particles, the apparatus comprising:

a manipulator array arrangement that comprises a beam input and a beam output, wherein:

the beam input is configured to receive beams from a plurality of sources, each source arranged to emit a beam of charged particles;

the beams are arranged such that, at the beam input and in a plane that is substantially orthogonal to a charged particle optical axis, an illumination area of each beam substantially abuts an illumination area one or more other beams; and

the manipulator array arrangement is configured so that a multi-beam of sub-beams of charged particles is output from the beam output in a single column.

18. The apparatus of claim 17 , wherein the beams are arranged so that the beams from all of the sources cross-over each other at one or more positions along the charged particle optical axis before the beams reach the beam input.

19. The apparatus of claim 18 , further comprising a condenser lens, wherein the beams from all of the sources cross-over each other in substantially a same region in a plane that is orthogonal to the charged particle optical axis, the condenser lens arranged to be in the region in the plane where the beams cross-over each other.

20. The apparatus according to claim 5 , wherein the plurality of substantially parallel collimated beams output from the deflector array are substantially parallel with a charged particle optical axis of the apparatus.