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Abstract

Electron-optical rotationally symmetrical lenses inevitably suffer from chromatic aberration which often determines the resolution limit at low acceleration voltages. This lens defect cannot be eliminated by compensation by means of rotationally symmetrical fields. In order to improve the resolution nevertheless, it has already been proposed to correct the chromatic aberration by means of a corrector (28) provided with two correction elements (34, 40). Each correction element consists of a number of quadrupole fields. Using the known corrector, it has been found that the chromatic magnification error is inadmissibly high. In order to solve this problem, the correction elements in the corrector according to the invention are provided with at least five layers of electrodes (60-a, 60-b, 60-c, 60-d) which produce quadrupole fields. Because of the strong periodicity of the electron paths in the correcting quadrupole fields, the chromatic magnification error is limited sufficiently (or even reduced to zero) so as to allow the use of the corrector for practical purposes.

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First Claim