An apparatus related method for measuring a property of a target material. The system may include a pump device that generates a pump beam. A modulation device may receive the pump beam and generate a modulated pump beam by modulating an intensity amplitude of the pump beam, which may be directed to the target material. A probe device may generate a probe beam, which is directed to the target material. A part of the probe beam may be reflected off of the target material, and has similar frequency characteristic as the modulated pump beam. A detection device may detect the reflected probe beam and produce a signal. An analyzing device may receive the signal and calculate the target material property by comparing the modulated frequency characteristics of the signal to those of the pump beam. At least one of the pump and the probe beams may be infrared light.

The present invention relates to a method and device for fast and accurate mapping of the thickness of a thin film (10), particularly on a silicon wafer. The method comprises of irradiating the thin film (10) with excitation radiation of at least two wavelengths, wherein a luminescent image is captured during irradiation. In a preferred embodiment, the silicon wafer can move, for example during transport on a belt in a production line. These procedures can be used for online diagnostics of silicon wafer thicknesses in the production of solar cells. Exemplary embodiments include a method and device for obtaining images of an entire silicon wafer and can provide quick feedback for process control if preferably connected to a computing unit.

A method that may include performing first measurements of the height differences between the bumps and the corresponding areas, by illuminating the bumps and the corresponding areas with first radiation; wherein the first measurements are subjected to first measurement errors resulting from a virtual penetration of the first illumination into the layer; wherein each bump has a corresponding area that is proximate to the bump; preforming second measurements of thickness of the layer at the corresponding areas; wherein at least some of the first measurements are executed in parallel to an executing of at least some of the second measurements; determining first measurement errors, based on the second measurements; and determining the height differences between the bumps and the corresponding areas based on the first measurements and the first measurements errors.

A three-dimensional (3D) memory device includes a stack structure including a first stack structure and a second stack structure over the first stack structure, and a barrier layer disposed in a first channel hole in the first stack structure.

A multi-shield plate includes a plurality of windows and a plurality of vapor shields mounted to the plurality of windows, wherein each window of the plurality of windows is formed in the plate and extends through an entirety of the plate in a thickness direction. The multi-shield plate further includes a plurality of apertures in the plate, wherein each of the plurality of apertures extends through the entirety of the plate in the thickness direction and, an aperture of the plurality of apertures is aligned with a corresponding window of the plurality of windows along radius of the multi-shield plate.

A measurement apparatus includes an inclined dichroic mirror configured to separate light from a sample by transmitting or reflecting the light according to wavelengths, a total reflection mirror configured to reflect one part of light either transmitted or reflected by the inclined dichroic mirror, an imaging element configured to photograph the other part of the light transmitted or reflected by the inclined dichroic mirror in a first imaging region and photograph light reflected by the total reflection mirror in a second imaging region different from the first imaging region, and a control apparatus configured to correct images photographed in the first imaging region and the second imaging region based on optical characteristics related to a change in transmittance and reflectance with respect to a wavelength in the inclined dichroic mirror.

A method of in situ monitoring a thin film deposition process on a substrate, the method including a) defining a desired spectrum, the desired spectrum being a transmission or a reflection spectrum; b1) illuminating the substrate by means of a light source emitting light within the desired spectrum, b2) receiving light reflected from the substrate or transmitted through the substrate, b3) determining a transmission or a reflection spectrum out of the received light; c) defining a spectrum or a combination of spectra in dependency of the spectrum determined in step b3) to be a current spectrum; d) determining a weight spectrum as a function of the current spectrum; e) calculating a real number as a function of the current spectrum, of the desired spectrum and of the weight spectrum; f) exploiting the real number as indication for a deviation of the current spectrum from the desired spectrum.

Disclosed is a method comprising measuring radiation reflected from a metrology target and decomposing the measured radiation in components, for example Fourier components or spatial components. Further, there is disclosed a recipe selection method which provides an algorithm to select a parameter of the metrology apparatus based on re-calculated dependencies of 5 the measured radiation based on single components.

There is disclosed a polishing apparatus which allows for easy replacement of a light source with another type of light source. The light-source assembly includes: a base fixed to a polishing table and coupled to a light-emitting transmission line; and a light-source module having a lamp for emitting light. The light-source module is removably attached to the base. The base is a common base which is adapted to any of a plurality of light-source modules of different types including the light-source module. The base includes a positioning structure which achieves positioning of the light-source module relative to the base.

An optical metrology model for in-line thickness measurements of a film overlying non-ideal structures on a substrate is generated by performing pre-measurements prior to deposition of the film and performing post-measurements after the deposition. The pre- and post-measurements are performed at at least one of multiple polarization angles or multiple orientations of the substrate. Differences in reflectance between the pre- and post-measurements are determined at the multiple polarization angles and the multiple orientations. At least one of the multiple polarization angles or the multiple orientations are identified where the differences in reflectance are indicative of a suppressed influence from the non-ideal structures. The optical metrology model is generated using the identified polarization angles and the identified orientations as inputs to a machine-learning algorithm