Patent ID: 9559023
Date: 2017-01-31
CPC Classifications: B23K,H01L

Claim:
1. A method of forming a line image during laser annealing of a surface of a semiconductor wafer, comprising: directing a conditioned laser beam in a first direction through an opening in an aperture using a beam-redirecting element; forming a line image on the surface of the semiconductor wafer by imaging the aperture onto the surface using the conditioned laser beam, thereby locally heating the surface to form an annealing temperature distribution; detecting thermal emissions from the locally heated wafer surface; determining the annealing temperature distribution from the detected thermal emissions; determining from the annealing temperature distribution a line-image intensity profile that includes a time-varying amount of slope; and adjusting the beam-redirecting element to redirect the conditioned laser beam to travel in a second direction through the opening in the aperture to reduce or eliminate the time-varying amount of slope in the line-image intensity profile.