Modeling radiative properties of nanoscale patterned wafers

Temperature nonuniformity in rapid thermal processing of wafers is a critical problem facing the semiconductor industry. One cause of the problem is the nonuniform absorption of thermal radiation in patterned wafers where the optical properties vary across the wafer surface. This paper presents a parametric study of the radiative properties of patterned wafers, considering the effect of temperature, wavelength, and polarization. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is employed to examine the effect of various trench sizes on the radiative properties via numerically solving the Maxwell equations. The effective medium theory (EMT) is also used to help explain the absorptance prediction. The results show that in the cases with trench size variation, the resonance cavity effect may increase the absorptance as the trench width increases. And in the cases with trench size increasing at several different filling ratios, the absorptance does not change much at small filling ratio. The effects of the resonant cavity, diffraction, wave interferences on the spectral-directional absorptance were also discussed. This work is of great importance for optimization of advanced annealing techniques in semiconductor manufacturing.