Application of light scattering tomography for Si(111) samples.

The detection of bulk micro-defects in Czochralski-grown silicon (Si) 〈100〉 wafers has significant importance in wafer quality control. Light Scattering Tomography (LST) is an industry standard technique for this purpose. This optical non-contact metrology requires destructive sample preparation: Samples have to be cleaved into half. One particular feature of the method is a dark field detection arrangement, which is achieved by separating the light detection part (microscope unit) from the illumination. Illumination is applied to the front surface of the sample, and the light scattered off of the defects is collected via the cleaved surface. The technique requires the perpendicularity of the cleaved surface to the front surface, which is fulfilled for Si(100) wafers. However, the nominally cleaved surface for Si(111) wafers is not perpendicular to the front surface but has an angle of 70.5°. This significant difference in cleavage results in the fact that Si(111) wafers cannot be measured by standard LST systems. Fortunately, the standard LST system can be modified by tilting the detection part under a proper angle allowing the measurements of Si(111) samples. In this article, we present this new technique in detail, showing the design and measurement capability of the new system. The measurement results are validated by a direct comparison to standard LST measurements on the same samples after proper sample preparation.

Bulk micro-defect detection with low-angle illumination.

The detection of oxygen precipitates, voids, and other defects is critical for semiconductor wafer makers. One of the industry standard techniques for detecting these Bulk Micro-Defects (BMDs) is Semilab's Light Scattering Tomograph (LST) system. In this measurement, unpatterned wafers are nominally cleaved in half. Illumination is applied to the front surface of the sample, and the light scattered off of the defects is collected via the cleaved surface. This technique had been limited to the measurement of unpatterned wafers, but device makers show significant interest in measuring BMD distributions on patterned wafers using scattering-based techniques. A pattern on the surface of the wafer can cause significant scattering, making the standard LST technique unsuitable for this task. We present a solution for patterned wafer BMD measurements by an addition of a low-angle illumination unit to the standard LST system. This new illumination unit focuses the light into the bulk of the wafer via the cleaved surface, which enables measurement on patterned samples. The new system is called "light scattering tomograph enhanced by low-angle illumination." Excellent correlation was found between the detected defect densities obtained by the low-angle and the standard LST illumination mode.