Method of monitoring evaporation rate of source material in a container

Abstract

A method for monitoring the capability of a source container comprising liquid or solid source material to produce vaporized source material comprises extracting vaporized source material from the source container. The source container is then isolated and a property indicative of the partial pressure of the vaporized source material is then measured as a function of time. The partial pressure (or property indicative thereof) as a function of time is compared with a reference partial pressure as a function of time. An alarm is generated when the difference between the measured property (indicative of partial pressure) as a function of time and the reference property value as a function of time is larger than a predetermined property difference limit. The property can be, for example, overall pressure or source material concentration in the gas phase.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.