US Patent 11508047 Charged particle microscope device and wide-field image generation method

Even if a generated wide-field image includes residual local misalignment, this charged particle microscope device can prompt for user input to correct such local misalignment, and can regenerate, on the basis of the user input, a wide-field image that includes little misalignment even in local areas of the overlap regions thereof. A charged particle microscope according to the present invention captures a plurality of images in such a way that each captured image has overlap regions that are to be overlapped with the overlap regions of captured images adjacent to that captured image, wherein an image processing unit: sets a pair of corresponding points in respective overlap regions of each two adjacent captured images; sets predetermined constraint conditions for each captured image; calculates the amounts of misalignment between the plurality of captured images on the basis of the set pairs of corresponding points and the set constraint conditions; connects the plurality of captured images to one another after correcting the misalignment between these captured images on the basis of the calculated amounts of misalignment, thereby generating a single wide-field image; calculates, for each of a plurality of local areas set in the overlap regions of each two adjacent captured images, a degree of reliability for the connection between these captured images; and notifies a user of either each found low reliability local area or the overlap region including that low reliability local area, as well as the set pairs of corresponding points and the set constraint conditions.