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Real-time detection of surface cracks on silicon wafers during laser beam irradiation

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Abstract

In this paper, a real-time in situ method to detect surface crack initiation on silicon wafers during laser beam irradiation is proposed. This method collects scattered light from the silicon wafer surface subjected to the laser irradiation. When the crack is initiated, the laser beam is strongly scattered by the crack so that the proposed method can monitor the time of crack initiation based on the increases of the level of the scattering signal. In order to demonstrate the performance of this method, a silicon wafer specimen was illuminated by a continuous wave (CW) fiber laser beam (wavelength of 1,070 nm) and the scattered light was detected at three different laser powers. The scattering signal showed a very high level at the time of crack initiation. The detected crack initiation times were 11.6 s, 5.5 s, and 2.5 s at irradiances of 130 W/cm2, 149 W/cm2, and 168 W/cm2, respectively. These results agree well with the theoretical predictions. Based on these results, we demonstrated that the proposed method is very effective for the real-time in situ detection of surface cracking induced by laser beam irradiation on silicon wafers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Convergence Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul, 133-791, Korea

    Sungho Choi & Sung-Hee Yoon

  2. School of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul, 133-791, Korea

    Kyung-Young Jhang

  3. The 4th R&D Institute-1, Agency of Defense Development, Daejeon, Korea

    Wan-Soon Shin

Authors
  1. Sungho Choi
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  2. Sung-Hee Yoon
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  3. Kyung-Young Jhang
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  4. Wan-Soon Shin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kyung-Young Jhang.

Additional information

This paper was presented at the FEOFS 2013, Jeju, Korea, June 9–13, 2013. Recommended by Guest Editor Jung-Il Song

Sungho Choi received his B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea in 2010. He is currently working on his M.S./Ph.D. degrees at Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea studying ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods and laser-material interactions.

Kyung-Young Jhang received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in precision mechanical engineering from Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea, in 1983 and 1985, respectively. In 1991, he received his Ph.D. in precision mechanical systems design from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan. He has been a professor at Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea since 1992. His research interests include experimental mechanics, ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation techniques, optical measuring systems, visual image processing, random signal processing, and laser-material interactions.

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Choi, S., Yoon, SH., Jhang, KY. et al. Real-time detection of surface cracks on silicon wafers during laser beam irradiation. J Mech Sci Technol 29, 39–43 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-014-1206-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-014-1206-z

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