Optical design for line generation using microlens array

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8946594-B2
Application number	US-201213649028-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 10, 2012
Priority date	Nov 4, 2011
Publication date	Feb 3, 2015
Grant date	Feb 3, 2015

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention provide an apparatus including a substrate support, a source of laser radiation emitting laser radiation along an optical path, and an illumination optics disposed along the optical path. The illumination optics includes a set of slow-axis and fast-axis lenses. The apparatus further includes a homogenizer disposed between of the illumination optics and the substrate support along the optical path. The homogenizer includes a first and a second micro-optic lenslet arrays of cylindrical lenses, wherein the second micro-optic lenslet array of cylindrical lenses has a relatively larger lenslet pitch than that of the first micro-optic lenslet array of cylindrical lenses, and lenslet axes of the first micro-optic lenslet array and lenslet axes of the second micro-optic lenslet array are oriented along an axis that is parallel to a fast axis of the source of laser radiation.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A thermal processing apparatus for processing a semiconductor substrate, comprising:
a substrate support;
a source of laser radiation for emitting laser radiation along an optical path;
an illumination optics disposed along the optical path, comprising:
a set of slow-axis lenses having at least a first cylindrical lens and a second cylindrical lens spaced apart from each other; and
a set of fast-axis lenses having at least a first cylindrical le…

Assignees

• Applied Materials Inc

Inventors

• Holmgren Douglas E
• Howells Samuel C

Classifications

• H10P72/0436

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10P34/42 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10W99/00

  Electricity · mapped topic

• G02B27/10

  Physics · mapped topic

• B23K26/00

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic