Thermal processing apparatus
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsStephen Moffatt, Douglas E. Holmgren, Samuel C. Howells, Edric Tong, Bruce E. Adams, Jiping Li, Aaron Muir Hunter
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Abstract
The present invention generally relates to an optical system that is able to reliably deliver a uniform amount of energy across an anneal region contained on a surface of a substrate. The optical system is adapted to deliver, or project, a uniform amount of energy having a desired two-dimensional shape on a desired region on the surface of the substrate. An energy source for the optical system is typically a plurality of lasers, which are combined to form the energy field.
Claims18
A method of processing a substrate, comprising:
- directing a radiant energy field toward a portion of the substrate, wherein the radiant energy field comprises pulsed light from a plurality of lasers that have been combined by passing the pulsed light through two sides of a selecting surface of a combining optic, wherein the pulsed light is temporally decorrelated by splitting the pulsed light into a plurality of sub-pulses and routing each of the plurality of sub-pulses along a different path with a different optical length, and spatially decorrelated by creating an energy field from the pulsed light and overlapping portions of the energy field;
- detecting a temporal shape of the radiant energy field using a photodiode;
- detecting an energy content of the radiant energy field using a pyroelectric detector;
- adjusting a pulse timing of one or more of the lasers based on the temporal shape of the radiant energy field detected by the photodiode;
- and
- attenuating one or more of the lasers based on the energy content of the radiant energy field detected by the pyroelectric detector.
A method of processing a substrate, comprising:
- forming a radiant energy field having a spatial standard deviation of intensity non-uniformity no more than about 3% and an energy content of at least about 0.2 J/cm2, wherein the radiant energy field comprises pulsed light from a plurality of lasers combined by passing through two sides of a selecting surface of a combining optic, temporally decorrelated by splitting the pulsed light into a number of sub-pulses and routing each sub-pulse along a different path with a different optical length, and spatially decorrelated by creating an energy field from the pulsed light and overlapping portions of the energy field;
- directing the radiant energy field toward a first portion of the substrate surface in a pulse;
- moving the substrate;
- and
- directing the radiant energy field toward a second portion of the substrate surface.
A method of processing a substrate, comprising:
- directing a shaped radiant energy field toward the substrate through a reflector optically coupled to the substrate, wherein the shaped radiant energy field comprises pulsed light from a plurality of lasers combined by passing through two sides of a selecting surface of the combining optic, temporally decorrelated by splitting the pulsed light into a number of sub-pulses and routing each sub-pulse along a different path with a different optical length, spatially decorrelated by creating an energy field from the pulsed light and overlapping portions of the energy field;
- detecting an alignment of the substrate and the shaped radiant energy field by viewing light reflected from the substrate using the reflector;
- and
- adjusting the alignment of the substrate with the shaped radiant energy field.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.