Emissivity Measurement of Silicon Semiconductor Wafer

near Room Temperature

Hiroshi Sugawara, Tomohiro Ohkubo, Tadakazu Fukushima and Tohru Iuchi
Toyo University, 2100 Kujirai, Kawagoe, Japan
iuchi@eng.toyo.ac.jp
Abstract: Emissivity behaviors of a silicon semiconductor wafer near room temperature have been
measured and considered from the view point of spectral, directional and polarized properties. The
silicon wafer near room temperature is semitransparent at a wavelength more than 1.1 m, which
makes emissivitity behaviors complicated. Modeling of emissivities is proposed and compared with
experimental results.
Keywords: Radiation thermometry, Semiconductor wafer, Room temperature, Emissivity.
1. Introduction
Temperature measurement is important in silicon
semiconductor processes such as Rapid Transient
Annealing, Thermal Oxidation, Chemical Vapor Deposition,
and so on
1,2)
. Development of direct measurement of wafer
temperature is crucial for high quality control of wafers
during processing; however, there is little technique to meet
the requirement.
Radiation thermometry is a non-contact method of
temperature measurement, which is suitable for
semiconductor processes which hate contamination due to
contact. Emissivity variations of silicon wafer due to
growth of thin film such as oxide film or epitaxial film layer
on its surface cause serious temperature errors to radiation
thermometry.
This study aims to investigate emissivity behaviors
during growth of thin film, especially, from the view point
of spectral, directional and polarized properties near room
temperature. In order to develop this study, there are two
problems. The one is that a silicon wafer becomes a
semitransparent material at longer wavelengths than 1.1 m.
This condition is unavoidable for the choice of wavelength
of radiation thermometry near room temperature. The other
is that welding of a thermocouple to a specimen is difficult.
This paper describes the development of an apparatus for
emissivity measurement of a silicon semiconductor wafer
near room temperature and related experimental results.
Some measurement examples of emissivity behaviors of
silicon wafers are shown.
Final purpose of this study is the development of
emissivity-compensated radiation thermometry for silicon
wafers during manufacturing processing near room
temperature.
2. Measurement Principle
Fig. 1 shows a basic system explaining the measurement
principle for emissivity measurement of a specimen near
room temperature.

Specimen
T1 T2
Sensor
E1 E2
Noise N1
Noise drift N2 n
Fig. 1 Basic system for the measurement of emissivity of a
specimen near room temperature.
Let T
i
(i=1,2) be the temperature of the specimen, and let
E
b
(T
i
) be a spectral blackbody radiance signal detected by a
sensor at temperature T
i
. When the specimen temperature is
T
1
, the detected signal E
1
by the sensor is shown as Eq.(1),
1 1 1
( ) ( ) .
b
E E T N c u = +
2
N +
2
N +
(1)
where c(u) is the emissivity of the specimen at a direction
of u; N
1
is background radiation noise that mostly originates
from an opposite direction u against the arrangement of the
sensor; N
2
is off-set noise drift of the sensor caused by
fluctuation of temperature inside the optical sensor.
Similarly, the detected signal E
2
at T
2
is described as,
2 2 1
( ) ( ) .
b
E E T N c u = + (2)
As both temperatures T
1
and T
2
are room temperatures
(around 323 K) and the difference between them is small
(for example T
2
T
1
=10 K), the emissivities of the wafer is
assumed to be the same quantity c(u).
From the difference of Eqs.(1) and (2), the emissivity
c(u) of the specimen is obtained as,
2 1
2 1
( ) .
( ) ( )
b b
E E
E T E T
c u

(3)
SICE Annual Conference in Fukui, August 4-6, 2003
Fukui University, Japan
PR0001/03/0000-0580 400 2003 SICE -580-
3. Experimental Apparatus
Fig. 2 shows two optical systems of radiometers for the
measurement near room temperature. An InSb sensor
sensitive at 4.7 0.1 m is used for these radiometers. As
the optical choppers, a specularly reflecting gold-plating
surface and a blackened surface that well absorbs infrared
radiation are compared at each optical system, respectively.
sensor
(L)
specimen
(L
s
)
chopper
(L
c
)
mirror
(a) inside optical chopper
(L
w
)
(b) outside optical chopper
sensor
(L)
specimen
(L
s
)
chopper
(L
c
)
mirror
(L
w
)
0
0.5
1.5
2.5
3.5
303 313 323 333 343
0
0.5
1.5
2.5
3.5
303 313 323 333 343
Temperature (K) Temperature (K)
R
a
d
i
o
m
e
t
e
r

o
u
t
p
u
t

(
V
)
(a) Inside optical chopper
(b) Outside optical chopper
Heater
Noise(N)
Chopper
Sensor
(InSb)
Specimen

Bandpass Filter
(4.7 m)
E
1
E
2
T
1
T
2
~
~
Heater
Si wafer
Foil-type
thermocouple
(T-type)
Heater
Si wafer
Fig. 2 Optical systems of radiometers, where each optical
chopper is set at a different position.
Fig. 3 shows experimental results of the characteristic
curves between the radiometer output and temperature of a
blackbody for the combinations of the location of an optical
chopper and the surface condition of a chopper. It is clear
from Fig. 3 that an optical chopper that is set at the outside
the box and that is treated as a specularly reflecting
gold-plating surface is excellent for a radiometer system.
Blackened
Specular
Blackened
Specular
Fig. 3 Characteristic curves between the radiometer output
and temperature of a blackbody (experimental).
Based on the experimental results, an apparatus for
emissivity measurement of a silicon wafer near room
temperature has been devised as shown in Fig. 4. By
automatically rotating the combined portion of the
specimen and the heater from u = 0 to 90, spectral,
directional and polarized radiances of the specimen can be
measured by an InSb sensor (Hamamatsu, P7751-02). An
optical chopper with a specularly reflecting gold-plating
surface to convert radiant flux originated from the specimen
into alternate signal is set up at the outside the box in which
an optical system is composed. This arrangement has been
experimentally proved to be the best performance designed
to detect radiance coming from the specimen as described
above. In order to monitor the surface temperature of the
specimen, a T-type foiled thermocouple (Chino, 0.07 mm
thickness) is glued to the specimen. Experiments have
shown that uncertainty of the temperature measured by the
thermocouple is estimated to be within 0.5 K.
Polarizer(p, s)
Mirror
Fig. 4 Apparatus for emissivity measurement of Si wafer.
3. Emissivity Measurement of Si Wafer
As the band gap of single crystal silicon is 1.12 eV at
room temperature, a silicon wafer becomes semitransparent
at longer wavelengths than 1.1 m. Therefore, the
emissivity measurement of a silicon wafer at 4.7 m meets
some difficulties because the radiant energy coming from
the heater penetrates the wafer and is detected by a
radiometer, causing the noise. In order to confirm and
negate the effect of this disturbance, an experiment for
emissivity measurement has been carried out.
Fig. 5 shows the conditions of a bare silicon wafer (3
inch diameter) and a heater where (a) a wafer is put on the
heater and (b) the rear side of a wafer is blackened to
absorb the radiation of the heater.
Rear side is blackened
(a)
(b)
Fig. 5 Conditions of a bare silicon wafer and a heater.
Fig. 6 shows an experimental result of emissivity
measurements of silicon wafers using the apparatus of Fig.
4 under the conditions of Fig. 5. The measurement
procedure is based on Eqs. (1) to (3). Two pairs of spectral
directional and polarized emissivities for the same specimen
-581-
are measured at a wavelength of 4.7 m by use of an InSb
sensor. The indication (rear:black) means that the rear
surface of a wafer is black-painted, which prevents the
radiation coming from the heater from penetrating the
interior of the wafer, thus emissivity readings are displayed
within 1.0. Emissivities with no indication, however, are
strongly affected by radiation that originates from the heater
and that penetrates the interior of the semitransparent wafer.
Therefore, p-polarized emissivity at moderately large angle
u is observed to show more than 1.0.
From these experimental results, emissivity
measurements thereafter have been suitably carried out
using wafers, the rear side of which is black-painted.
0
0.4
0.8
1.2
0 10 30 50 70
Angle
E
m
i
s
s
i
v
i
t
y

90
Si wafer (100)(t=0.5 mm)
=4.7 m
p-polarized
s-polarized
s-polarized(rear:black)
p-polarized(rear:black)
Fig. 6 Experimental results of emissivity measurements.
In order to investigate the effect of oxide film thickness
(SiO
2
) on the directional polarized emissivity, five silicon
wafers are prepared; bare, d=50, 100, 150 and 200 nm oxide
film thickness.
Fig. 7 shows experimental results of p-polarized
emissivities for these five specimens. Emissivities are
measured by the use of Eq. (3), where T
1
and T
2
are
controlled at 313 K and 323 K, respectively.
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
0 10 30 50 70 90
Bare
d=50 nm
d=150 nm
d=200 nm
d=100 nm
p
-
e
m
i
s
s
i
v
i
t
y
Angle u
Silicon wafer p-doped (100)
t=0.5 mm thickness
Fig. 7 Experimental results for the effect of oxide film
thickness on p-polarized emissivity. Specimens with
p-doped (1~10 Ocm), and (100) surface direction are used.
Similarlly, Fig. 8 shows experimental results for
s-polarized emissivities of the same specimens used in Fig.
7.
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
0 10 30 50 70 90
d=200 nm
d=150 nm
d=50 nm
d=100 nm
bare
Silicon wafer p-doped (100)
t=0.5 mm thickness
s
-
e
m
i
s
s
i
v
i
t
y
Angle u
Fig. 8 Experimental results for the effect of oxide film
thickness on s-polarized emissivity. Specimens are the same
as the ones used in Fig. 7.
4. Considerations
In order to consider the experimental results shown in
Figs. 7 and 8, we made a simulation model. Fig. 9 shows
the model composed of two layers; bare silicon wafer
surface and oxide film (SiO
2
). Variables d and t show the
thickness of the oxide film and a bare wafer, respectively.
The thickness t is assumed to be much thicker than the
thickness d, thus the reflection on the rear surface of the
wafer has less effect on the emissivity modeling. n
2
and n
3
show refractive indices of oxide film and the bare wafer,
respectively. Extinction coefficients of both materials are
negligible in the spectral range we consider now.
d
t
SiO2
Si
n2=1.44 at 4.7 m
n3=3.43 at 4.7 m
Fig. 9 A model composed of two layers; bare silicon wafer
and oxide film (SiO
2
).
Figs. 10 and 11 show simulated results of p-polarized and
s-polarized emissivities for the same conditions as the
experimental results shown in Figs. 7 and 8, respectively.
Experimental results are coincident well with simulated
results. The difference of emissivities among the five
specimens is small as far as the thickness d is limited to 200
nm. As the sensitive wavelength of the sensor is 4.7 m,
the normalized thickness d/ shows about 0.04. Peak values
of p-polarized emissivities near 73 in Fig. 7 are assumed to
-582-
be caused by Brewsters law, where p-polarized emissivities
indicate almost 1.0. The use of p-polarized radiance at a
Brewster angle can provide an accurate temperature
measurement of silicon wafers as far as oxide film thickness
d is small, that is, d is limited to 200 nm. The simulation in
Fig.10 shows Brewster angle of 73.4.
0
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
10 30 50 70
90
p
-
e
m
i
s
s
i
v
i
t
y
Angle u
bare
d=50 nm
d=100 nm
d=150 nm
d=200 nm
Silicon wafer
n2=1.44, n3=3.43 at 4.7 m
Fig. 10 Simulated results for the effect of oxide film
thickness d on p-polarized emissivities.
0 10 30 50
70
90
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
bare
d=50 nm
d=100 nm
d=150 nm
d=200 nm
Silicon wafer
n2=1.44, n3=3.43 at 4.7 m
Angleu
s
-
e
m
i
s
s
i
v
i
t
y
Fig. 11 Simulated results for the effect of oxide film
thickness d on s-polarized emissivities.
5. Conclusions
In order to measure directional polarized emissivities of a
silicon semiconductor wafer near room temperature, two
kinds of measurement systems in relating to the location of
an optical chopper and its surface condition have been
devised and compared. As a result, the radiometer system of
Fig. 4 has shown the best performance.
Using this system, emissivity measurements of silicon
wafers have been carried out. The wafer specimen, the rear
surface of which is black-painted, has prevented the
radiation that originates from the heater from penetrating
into the semitransparent wafer. This treatment contributes to
an accurate emissivity measurement near room temperature.
Experimental results of directional and polarized
emissivities are well coincident with simulated results. As
far as oxide film thickness d is limited to 200 nm,
emissivities of wafers with oxide film is close to bare
wafers. P-polarized emissivity of a silicon wafer with very
thin oxide film is extremely high at a Brewster angle of the
oxide film at 4.7 m. P-polarized emissivity of a bare
silicon wafer at a Brewstar angle of about 73 is essentially
1.0, which can utilize to accurately monitor the surface
temperature of the wafer.
References
1) T. A. Badgwell, T. F. Edger and I. Trachtenberg, In situ
measurement of wafer temperature in a low pressure
chemical vapor deposition furnace, TEMPERATURE, vol.6,
1129-1134 (1992)
2) C. C. Gibson, D. P. DeWitt and F. Y. Sorrell, In-process
temperature measurement of silicon wafers,
TEMPERATURE, vol.6, 1123-1127 (1992)
-583-