Temperature sensor and method

• US 5,501,637 A
• Filed: 09/20/1994
• Issued: 03/26/1996
• Est. Priority Date: 08/10/1993
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Inventors: Taylor, Larry A., Duncan, Walter M., Henck, Steven A., Celii, Francis G., Paranjpe, Ajit P., Mahlum, Douglas L.
• Primary Examiner(s): GUTIERREZ, DIEGO F
• Application Number:
  US08/309,347
• Time in Patent Office: 553 Days
• Field of Search: 374/126, 374/128, 374/9, 250/225, 356/364, 356/367, 356/368, 356/369
• US Class Current: 374/126
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 5/0003 for sensing the radiant heat transfer of samples, e.g. emittance meter
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 5/0007 of wafers or semiconductor substrates, e.g. using Rapid Thermal Processing
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 5/0846 having multiple detectors for performing different types of detection, e.g. using radiometry and reflectometry channels
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 5/58 using absorption; using extinction effect
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 21/211 Ellipsometry optical thickness measurement G01B11/06

Abstract

A direct, noncontact temperature sensor includes an ellipsometer (104-106) to determine absorptance for layered structures and a pyrometer (102) to determine emissive power and combines the two measurements to determine temperature.

Claims

1. A temperature sensor for a layered structure, comprising:

a pyrometer; and

an absorptance detector coupled to said pyrometer, said detector determining emissivity of a layered structure based on layer thickness measurements;

wherein said absorptance detector provides an emissivity correction for said layered structure to said pyrometer.

2. The temperature sensor of claim 1, wherein:

said absorptance detector includes an ellipsometer with plural wavelength sensitivity.

3. The temperature sensor of claim 2, wherein:

said ellipsometer includes a broad spectrum input beam source, a spectrometer, and an array of photodetectors, whereby plural wavelengths may be simultaneously sensed.

4. The temperature sensor of claim 3, wherein:

said ellipsometer includes a photoelastic modulator in said input beam source.

5. The temperature sensor of claim 4, wherein:

ones of said photodetectors are sequentially sampled; and

said photoelastic modulator adjusts the magnitude of the phase difference between components of an input beam in response to the selection of the one of said photodetectors being sampled.

6. The temperature sensor of claim 5, wherein:

said ones of said photodetectors are sampled at a rate of about 1 MHz and for a time interval of about 20 microseconds for each photodetector; and

said photoelastic modulator modulates the phase difference between components of an input beam at a frequency of about 50 KHz.

7. The temperature sensor of claim 2, wherein:

said pyrometer measures emissive power about a wavelength which is longer than the wavelengths used by said ellipsometer.

8. The temperature sensor of claim 1, wherein:

said absorptance detector includes an ellipsometer and a computer, said computer programmed with relations between layer thicknesses and ellipsometric variables.

9. A temperature sensor, comprising:

a pyrometer with a passband filter centered at wavelength λ

₀ ;

an ellipsometer with detection bands centered at wavelengths λ

₁, λ

₂, . . . λ

_N, with N≧

2; and

a controller with inputs coupled to outputs of said pyrometer and said ellipsometer and outputting a temperature, said controller programmable to compute absorptance based on layer thickness measurement outputs of said ellipsometer and apply the absorptance as a correction to the output of said pyrometer.

10. The temperature sensor of claim 9, wherein:

λ

₀ is greater than λ

₁, λ

₂, . . . λ

_N.

11. The temperature sensor of claim 9, wherein:

said ellipsometer includes a phase difference modulation for an incident beam.

12. A temperature sensor as in claim 9, wherein said ellipsometer comprises:

an energy source for generating an electromagnetic wave;

a polarizer for receiving and polarizing the electromagnetic wave;

a phase modulator for modulating the phase of the electromagnetic wave;

the electromagnetic wave to impinge a sample to be measured;

an analyzer to receive a reflected wave from the sample and select a given polarization angle;

a spectrometer for separating the reflected wave into a plurality of substantially monochromatic waves;

an array detector for detecting an intensity and phase of each of the monochromatic waves, said array detector including a separate detector for each of the monochromatic waves; and

circuitry for analyzing the detected intensity and phase to determine information about the sample.

13. A temperature sensor as in claim 12, wherein said analyzing circuitry determines said information about a characteristic of said sample based on said detected intensity and phase.

14. A method of temperature sensing of a non-metal layered structure, comprising the steps off:

determining the absorptance of a non-metal layered structure by ellipsometry based on layer thickness measurements with said non-metal layered structure including at a surface at least one layer of known materials;

determining an emissive power at said surface of said non-metal layered structure by pyrometry; and

computing the temperature from said emissive power and said absorptance.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein:

said steps of determining the absorptance, determining the emissive power, and computing the temperature are repeated at a rate of roughly once per second.