Patent ID: 7837383

Claim:
A method for determining the temperature of a semiconductor material by spectral analysis in an environment where there are light signals from wanted and unwanted sources, said method comprising the steps of: providing a semiconductor material; interacting light signals with the semiconductor material to produce diffusely scattered light; collecting light in a spectrometer to produce spectra data by resolving light signals into discrete wavelength components of particular light intensity, the light containing both diffusely scattered light from the semiconductor material along with a component of unwanted light signals; identifying an absorption edge region in the spectra data; deriving a band edge wavelength value as a function of the identified absorption edge region; inferring a temperature of the semiconductor material based on the derived band edge wavelength value; and subtracting the unwanted light component from the spectra data before said step of deriving a band edge wavelength to create preprocessed spectra, whereby the temperature of a semiconductor material can be determined without modulating the wanted light signal prior to said collecting step; wherein said step of subtracting the unwanted light component includes determining a point of interest wavelength within the spectra data using a derivative calculation.