Optical sensing opportunities in production MBE

Abstract

Optical sensing has the potential to enable significant cost reduction and/or quality enhancement via: (1) the ability to impact wafer yield (number of wafers meeting customers spec divided by the total number of wafers grown), and (2) wafer throughput (rate of producing wafers that meet customer spec). Improvements in yield and throughput generally positively impact delivery times as well. Key technological and capacity issues that directly impact MBE process yield and throughput and for which optical sensors could play a role are discussed.