Apparatus for measuring characteristics of thin film by means of two-dimensional detector and method of measuring the same
First Claim
1. An apparatus for measuring a characteristic of a thin film, the apparatus comprising:
- a substrate carrier unit, including;
a sample carrier for supporting and moving a substrate with a thin film thereon,a driving portion for driving the sample carrier, anda control portion for controlling the driving portion;
an optical unit, including a light source, for radiating an incident light onto the substrate supported by the substrate carrier;
a filter unit for selectively filtering a particular wavelength range of the incident light radiated onto the substrate or of light reflected from the substrate;
a 2-dimensional photodetector for detecting the light reflected from the substrate in 2 dimensions, the light having the particular wavelength range selected by the filter unit;
an image capturing unit for obtaining image information included in the reflected light detected by the 2-dimensional photodetector;
an image processing unit for computing the reflectivities of the thin film with respect to the particular wavelength range of the light using the image information included in the reflective light obtained by the image capturing unit; and
an information processing unit for computing the characteristic of the thin film based on the reflectivity.
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Abstract
The present invention relates to a non-contact, non-destructive measuring apparatus that measures thickness profile and refractive index distribution of a single or multiple layers of thin films by means of the principle of reflectometry. According to the present invention, by employing more than one narrow band-pass optical filters and a two-dimensional array of CCD sensors, and by finding an optimal solution for the nonlinear functional relationship between the thickness of said thin film or thin films and the corresponding refractive indexes by using an iterative numerical computation method, said apparatus simultaneously measures local area-wise thickness profile and refractive index distribution among others of said a single layer or multiple layers of thin films on a substrate.
93 Citations
41 Claims
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1. An apparatus for measuring a characteristic of a thin film, the apparatus comprising:
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a substrate carrier unit, including; a sample carrier for supporting and moving a substrate with a thin film thereon, a driving portion for driving the sample carrier, and a control portion for controlling the driving portion; an optical unit, including a light source, for radiating an incident light onto the substrate supported by the substrate carrier; a filter unit for selectively filtering a particular wavelength range of the incident light radiated onto the substrate or of light reflected from the substrate; a 2-dimensional photodetector for detecting the light reflected from the substrate in 2 dimensions, the light having the particular wavelength range selected by the filter unit; an image capturing unit for obtaining image information included in the reflected light detected by the 2-dimensional photodetector; an image processing unit for computing the reflectivities of the thin film with respect to the particular wavelength range of the light using the image information included in the reflective light obtained by the image capturing unit; and an information processing unit for computing the characteristic of the thin film based on the reflectivity. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
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30. A method of measuring a characteristic of a thin film, the method comprising:
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locating a substrate with the thin film thereon such that a particular area of the thin film to be measured is properly positioned using a substrate carrier; radiating light onto the substrate; selectively filtering a particular wavelength range of the light; detecting the light that has been filtered and reflected from the substrate in 2 dimensions; obtaining image information included in the detected reflected light; extracting the intensities of the reflected light from the image information and computing the reflectivities of the thin film, with respect to the particular wavelength range of the light, using an image processing unit; computing the characteristic of the thin film using the reflectivities of the thin film using an information processing unit; and displaying the characteristic of the thin film on a monitor. - View Dependent Claims (31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41)
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Specification