Thermal Processing of Substrates with Pre- and Post-Spike Temperature Control

A method for thermally processing a surface of a substrate, comprising:

• (a) irradiating the substrate surface with first and second images;
• and
• (b) providing relative scanning motion between substrate surface and the images so as to process regions of the substrate surface along a scan path at a substantially uniform peak spike processing temperature,
• wherein:
• the first image has an intensity profile and size effective to:
• heat regions of the substrate surface along the scan path from an initial temperature at a controlled heating rate, and/or controlled heating duration, and
• cool regions of the substrate surface along the scan path to a final temperature at a controlled cooling rate and/or controlled cooling duration, and
• the second image has an intensity profile and size effective to bring regions of the substrate surface along the scan path from the an intermediate temperature higher than the initial temperature to the peak spike processing temperature to another intermediate temperature higher than the final temperature.

A method for thermally processing a surface of a substrate, comprising:

• (a) irradiating the substrate surface with first and second images;
• and
• (b) providing reversible relative scanning motion between substrate surface and the images to process regions of the substrate surface along a scan path at a substantially uniform peak processing temperature,
• wherein:
• the first image has an intensity profile and size effective to:
• heat regions of the substrate surface along the scan path preceding the second image from an initial temperature to a first intermediate temperature at a controlled heating rate and/or;
• cool regions of the substrate surface along the scan path following the second image from a second intermediate temperature to a final temperature at a controlled cooling rate, and
• the second image has an intensity profile and size effective to bring regions of the substrate surface along the scan path from the first intermediate temperature to the peak processing temperature to the second intermediate temperature.