ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,362,129, issued on July 15, was assigned to Carl Zeiss Microscopy GmbH (Jena, Germany).
"Particle beam column" was invented by Erik Essers (Aalen, Germany) and Bjorn Gamm (Koenigsbronn, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A particle beam column generates a particle beam of charged particles, for example electrons or ions, and direct it onto a sample. The particle beam column comprises a multi-aperture stop and a deflection system for selectively steering the particle beam through one of a plurality of apertures provided in the multi-aperture stop. The apertures have different sizes in order to limit the current strength of the particl...