The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 29, 2016
Filed:
Dec. 22, 2014
Kla-tencor Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Klaus Flock, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
KLA-Tencor Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
Methods and systems are described herein for producing high radiance illumination light suitable for semiconductor metrology. A cold gas is repeatedly ignited by a pulsed laser to periodically generate accessible, high brightness illumination light generated during each break-down event. The pulse duration and repetition period are set to ignite, but not sustain fully formed plasma. The central plasma core emits high color temperature light before a cooler plasma region forms around the central core. Thus, after ignition, the plasma is extinguished before the arrival of the next laser pulse. The repeated plasma ignition/extinction cycle generates illumination light at high color temperature that is accessible for illumination purposes in a metrology application. In one embodiment, a bulb filled with Xenon gas at 10 atmospheres is repeatedly ignited with a pulsed laser having pulse duration of 10 nanoseconds to generate illumination light with a color temperature of approximately 60,000 Kelvin.