A new optical method for measuring surface temperature at large incident probe angles

A novel thermoreflectance technique has been developed for noncontact temperature measurements using laser light incident at large angles on solid materials and devices. The method involves measuring the differential reflectance from a polarization modulated laser beam. The polarization differential reflectance technique is demonstrated on single-crystal Si wafers and on a polycrystalline carbon thin film over a temperature range of 20–60 °C. The method is shown to be an extremely sensitive temperature probe for near grazing angle measurements, which could be useful for monitoring the surface temperature of closely stacked silicon wafers used in batch processing in the microelectronics industry.