Skip to main content
Log in

Volumetric thin film thickness measurement using spectroscopic imaging reflectometer and compensation of reflectance modeling error

  • Published:
International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this paper, volumetric thin film thickness is measured using the spectroscopic imaging reflectometer, which consists of a microscopy optic system, variable bandpass filter and CCD camera. The volumetric thickness profile can be measured by using each pixel of the CCD camera as a spectrum sensor. The causes of reflectance modeling errors are explained, and equations for compensation are proposed. For the verification of system performance and proposed equations, the thickness of silicon oxide thin film is measured. Ellipsometer and AFM measurement results are used as nominal thicknesses for comparisons with the result of spectroscopic imaging reflectometer. From the comparisons, it is verified that the proposed equations can improve accuracy of measurement. It can be said that the proposed equations can properly compensate the error due to Gaussian distribution of filtering and lens NA.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

Abbreviations

rp, rs :

Fresnel’s reflection coefficients

Rp, Rs:

Total reflection coefficients

R:

Reflectance

λ :

Wavelength of light

θ 1 :

Incidence angle

θ 2 :

Refraction angle (or reflection angle)

θ̃ 1,NA :

Effective incidence angle

θ̃ 2,NA :

Effective refraction (or reflection) angle

ϕ max :

Maximum incidence angle by NA of objective lens

References

  1. Piegari, A. and Masetti, E., “Thin Film Thickness Measurement: a Comparison of Various Techniques,” Thin Solid Films, Vol. 124, No. 3, pp. 249–257, 1985.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Lukes, F. and Schmidt, E., “Another Method for the Determination of Silicon Oxide Thickness,” Solid-State Electronics, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 264–266, 1967.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Ohlídal, I., “Immersion Spectroscopic Reflectometry of Multilayer Systems. I. Theory,” Journal of Optical Society of America A, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 459–464, 1988.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Benson, T. E., Kamlet, L. I., Klimecky, P., and Terry, F. L., “In-Situ Spectroscopic Reflectometry for Polycrystalline Silicon Thin Film Etch Rate Determination during Reactive Ion Etchinc,” Journal of Electronic Materials, Vol. 25, No. 6, pp. 955–964, 1996.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Hauge, P., “Polycrystalline Silicon Film Thickness Measurement from Analysis of Visible Reflectance Spectra,” Journal of Optical Society of America A, Vol. 69, No. 8, pp. 1143–1152, 1979.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Kihara, T. and Yokomori, K., “Simultaneous Measurement of Refractive Index and Thickness of Thin Film by Polarized Reflectances,” Applied Optics, Vol. 29, No. 34, pp. 5069–5073, 1990.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Schnell, U., Gray, S., and Dändliker, R., “Dispersive White-Light Interferometry for Absolute Distance Measurement with Dielectric Multilayer Systems on the Target,” Optics Letters, Vol. 21, No. 7, pp. 528–530, 1996.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Kim, S. W. and Kim, G. H., “Thickness-Profile Measurement of Transparent Thin-Film Layers by White-Light Scanning Interferometry,” Applied Optics, Vol. 38, No. 28, pp. 5968–5973, 1999.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Kim, D., Kim, S., Kong, H. J., Lee, Y., and Kwak, Y. K., “Fast Thickness Profile Measurement using a Peak Detection Method based on an Acousto-Optic Tunable filter,” Measurement Science and Technology, Vol. 13, No. 7, Paper No. L1, 2002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. You, J. W., Kim, S., and Kim, D., “High Speed Volumetric Thickness Profile Measurement based on Full-Field Wavelength Scanning Interferometer,” Optics Express, Vol. 16, No. 25, pp. 21022–21031, 2008.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. You, J. W., Kim, D., Ryu, S. Y., and Kim, S., “Simultaneous Measurement Method of Total and Self-Interference for the Volumetric Thickness-Profilometer,” Optics Express, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 1352–1360, 2009.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Hwang, Y. M., Yoon, S. W., Kim, J. H., Kim, S., and Pahk, H. J., “Thin-Film Thickness Profile Measurement using Wavelet Transform in Wavelength-Scanning Interferometry,” Optics and Lasers in Engineering, Vol. 46, No. 2, pp. 179–184, 2008.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Urbánek, M., Spousta, J. I., Behounek, T., and Sikola, T., “Imaging Reflectometry in Situ,” Applied Optics, Vol. 46, No. 25, pp. 6309–6313, 2007.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Ohlídal, M., Ohlídal, I., Klapetek, P., Neèas, D., and Majumdar, A., “Measurement of the Thickness Distribution and Optical Constants of Non-Uniform Thin Films,” Measurement Science and Technology, Vol. 22, No. 8, Paper No. 085104, 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Hecht, E., “Optics,” Addison-Wesley, 4th Ed., pp. 113, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Fujiwara, H., “Spectroscopic Ellipsometry: Principles and Applications,” John Wiley & Sons, pp. 43, 2007.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  17. Pliskin, W. and Esch, R., “Effect of Numerical Aperture of Microscope Objectives on Film Thickness Determinations,” Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 39, No. 7, pp. 3274–3276, 1968.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kwangrak Kim.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Kim, K., Kim, S., Kwon, S. et al. Volumetric thin film thickness measurement using spectroscopic imaging reflectometer and compensation of reflectance modeling error. Int. J. Precis. Eng. Manuf. 15, 1817–1822 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-014-0534-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-014-0534-3

Keywords

Navigation