Thin Solid Films 455 – 456 (2004) 72–77

Precision auto-alignment for incident angle of an ellipsometer using

specimen stage
Sunglim Parka, DaeGab Gweona, Young Dong Kimb,*
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 373-1 Kusung-Dong Yusong-Gu,
Taejon 305-701, South Korea
b
Department of Physics, Research Institute for Basic Sciences, Kyung Hee University, 1 HoeGi-Dong DongDaeMun-Gu, Seoul 130-701,
South Korea

Abstract

We present a new two-step auto-alignment algorithm for the specimen stage of an ellipsometer. Correction of errors in tilt
angle and position of the specimen stage can be performed by locating the reflected light spot at the center of the detector at two
different angles of incidence or at two different orientations. The current method needs only one additional laser diode and one
photo diode. Model simulation showed that the two-step algorithm works well. This method is very simple and easy and has low
cost.
䊚 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Ellipsometer; Incident angle alignment

1. Introduction process of the light spot at the detector w5x. In this

It is well known that ellipsometry is one of the most
accurate optical methods to study optical constants of
many interesting materials and thin film parameters.
Even though the optical constants of a material should
be independent of measurement method, alignment
errors as well as imperfect optical components can result
in systematic errors in the ellipsometric measurement
and analysis. There are several reports that misalignment
of optical components in ellipsometric measurement
cause significant error in the angle of incidence (AOI)
which, resulting in AOI-dependent optical constants
w1,2x. Most commercially available ellipsometers use
focusing microscopy and a three-axis specimen stage
for alignment w3x. Another auto-alignment method was
also reported, using two step-motors to move a detector
w4x. Though this latter method may align the reflected
light spot at the center of the detector’s aperture, the
translation error of specimen stage still causes a residual
error in the AOI. We have presented an auto-alignment
method of a specimen stage using only a three-axis
stage and signal of detector, which deals with both
translation error of the specimen stage and corrective
*Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ydkim@oprl.khu.ac.kr (Y.D. Kim).
paper, we present an auto-alignment method of a speci-
men stage using specimen stage and one additional laser
diode (LD) and photo diode (PD), which complements
the previous method w5x.
2. Alignment algorithm
As shown in Fig. 1, when we place a specimen on a
specimen stage, three possible errors can occur; h-
translation error (displacement along z-axis), a-tilt angle
error (rotation about y-axis), and b-tilt angle error
(rotation about x-axis), if we put the origin of the x–
y–z coordinate at the specimen. (For simplicity we put
the origin of the coordinate at the point of light reflection
in perfectly aligned case.) These errors cause misalign-
ment of the system, resulting in the deviation (solid
line) of the reflecting light from its perfectly aligned
path (dotted line).
It is clear that any errors in the tilt angles and the
vertical (z-axis) position of the specimen stage cause
significant error in the AOI (u), which results in
incorrect analysis of the optical properties of the speci-
men. Note that since the a-tilt motion of the specimen
stage leads to a reflected beam motion on the detector
plane that is perpendicular to the plane of incidence,

0040-6090/04/$ - see front matter 䊚 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tsf.2003.12.047
 S. Park et al. / Thin Solid Films 455 – 456 (2004) 72–77 73

Fig. 1. Schematic of optical path in our ellipsometer. Dotted line shows the case of perfect alignment, while the solid line is the case of misaligned
by errors in specimen stage.

which is the y–z plane in Fig. 1, the a-tilt angle error

has less significant effect on the error of AOI. However,
since the b-tilt motion and the h-translation motion of
the specimen stage leads to a reflected beam motion on
the detector plane that is in the plane of incidence, the
b-tilt error and the h-translation error have a strong and
direct effect on the error of AOI. Our alignment method
at two different AOIs, which consists of two steps with
the corrective process, can separate the effects of these
errors.

2.1. The corrective process

The corrective process drives the spot into the center

of detector and it consists of accessing and centering
processes. When a detector (first PD) can get any light
intensity, the system can maximize the optical signal
relatively easily. However, even when the light spot is
far away from entrance aperture of the detector, the
system with auto-alignment ability should find its way
to get the optical signal. We call this as accessing
process. In this process, only two tilting motions are
used without translational motion along the z-axis. Fig.
2a shows the accessing trajectory (dashed line) of the
reflected light spot (small circle) in a spiral form of
increasing radius (Rs) when the light spot is away from
the detector (first PD) entrance aperture (large bold
circle) in the beginning. Therefore as to not miss the
detector’s entrance aperture we had to carefully choose
the parameters (Rs and f) of the spiral. Fig. 2b shows
the geometry of light spot which barely misses the
detector’s aperture. In other words, Fig. 2b shows the
maximum possible value of the step size (Df) of
increasing azimuthal angle f not to miss the aperture.
Then the radius Rs of the spiral is set to be:

Fig. 2. The accessing process. The large bold circle is the detector
f
RssŽ2Rqr. (1)
aperture and the small open circle is the reflected light spot. 2p
74 S. Park et al. / Thin Solid Films 455 – 456 (2004) 72–77

detector’s (first PD) aperture to show the centering

process of light spot on the detector’s aperture. The j-
axis is perpendicular to the plane of incidence and the
h-axis is parallel to the plane of the incidence. The
large bold open circle and small open circle represent
the detector’s aperture and the light spot, respectively.
Intensity of the detector signal is also shown together at
right side of Fig. 3 for each corresponding position of
the light spot. When the entire light spot is inside the
detector’s aperture, the intensity signal has its maximum.
However, when the light spot is partially blocked by the
edge of the aperture, the signal decreases.
Fig. 3a shows that the initial position of light spot in
the centering process would be around the edge of the
detector’s (first PD) aperture after the accessing process,
which is position j0 in j-direction with light intensity
signal as I0. By changing the a-tilt angle we can move
the light spot until its intensity signal passes the maxi-
mum (Imax) value, reaching the half of the maximum
(Imax y2) where the position of light spot is j1 (Fig. 3a).
(We have to add a few command lines in the centering
Fig. 3. The centering process. Left: position of light spot at the detec- algorithm to select the direction of movement. At the
tor aperture. Right: signal at the detector according to the position of j0 point, the change of light signal along positive and
the light spot. negative j-directions should be checked to select the
right direction.) Once reaching at j1 position, the spot
where R and r are the radii of the detector’s entrance moves in the reverse direction until it reaches the j2
aperture and the light spot, respectively. The f starts position where the light intensity is Imax y2 again (Fig.
from zero and increases by the step size Df, where 3b). Finally, the spot returns to the mid point of j1 and
j2, which is the center position of the detector’s aperture
B 2R2q2R Ry2Rryr2 E in j-direction (Fig. 3c). When the centering in j-
Dfs2cosy1C F
s s
(2)
D
2
2R q2RsR
s G direction is done, the a-tilt angle error is completely
removed because our specimen stage has independent
Once the detector finds a light signal, this accessing movements along the a- and b-tilts as discussed above.
process stops, and the centering process shown in Fig. For the h-direction, we repeat the same procedure by
3 starts. We set a new coordinate jyh in Fig. 3 at the changing b-tilt angle about x-axis this time, finishing
the centering process.
It should be emphasized that in the centering process
the detector’s signal was not simply maximized. Instead,
the light spot was set at the mid point between Imax y2,
which is the center of detector’s aperture. Note that even
if the aperture size is smaller than that of the light spot,
these accessing and centering algorithms still work. In
this work, we assumed the image of reflected light and
detector’s aperture to be perfect circles, and also
assumed uniform light intensity inside the circular light
spot, which are reasonable approximations to their real
shape and characteristics.

2.2. The first step

When the initial accessing and centering processes by

Fig. 4. Optical light paths. Vertical displacement (translation) and tilt
of specimen stage caused the change of reflected light path from dot–
dashed to solid line.
the first LD and the first PD are over at an arbitrary
AOI (u1) the first step of auto-alignment procedure is
essentially done, and the resulting light path is shown
in Fig. 4. Since all the optical components are fixed in
both the input and the output arms as explained in Fig.
 S. Park et al. / Thin Solid Films 455 – 456 (2004) 72–77 75

Fig. 5. The trajectory of the light spot during the accessing and centering processes.

1, any kind of degree of freedom exists only at the sinb1 sinb2

specimen stage. Therefore, we consider misalignment
only at the output light path. Let’s first assume, as
shown in Fig. 4, that the reflecting surface of the
specimen has a translation error h and a tilt angle error
b from the origin (O) of the (x–y–z) coordinate (which
is the same coordinate in Fig. 1b). Note that the origin
coincides with the reflecting point of perfect alignment.
The dashed bold line is the optical light path of the
perfect alignment, while the solid bold line represents
the case of misaligned by the errors assumed above.
The relation between the tilt angle error and the
translation error is then,
sinb
hsy ds (3)
sinŽuyb.
where ds is the distance between reflecting point on the
specimen and the detector’s aperture in the perfectly
aligned configuration, which is a fixed value for both
the first and second detectors, since the set up is
designed in such way in Fig. 1. Note that translation
error of Eq. (3) is expressed by b only.
2.3. The second step
hsy ds hsy ds
sinŽu1yb1. sinŽu2yb2.
Dbsb2yb1 (4)
The other method maximizes the intensity of the
second PD with holding the maximum intensity of the
first PD. That is, we adjust b-tilt of the specimen stage
for maximizing the intensity of the second PD and
simultaneously change the height according to the fol-
lowing equation.
sinu
Dbfy Dh at b<1 (5)
ds
In the second step, if the translation error h of the
specimen stage is not zero, the second light spot cannot
be at the center of the second PD’s aperture but shifted
along the h-axis direction of Fig. 3. (As explained
above, once the a-tilt angle error was corrected at the
initial centering process, no more centering in the j-
direction is needed.) Therefore, the centering process by
only the b-tilt adjustment need be performed for the
second light spot to be centered at the second PD’s
aperture along h-direction.

In the second step, we maximize the intensity of the
second PD as well as the first PD. There are two
methods. The one method does the centering process
for the second PD and solves the following equations
to find the height (h) and tilt errors (b).
3. Simulation and discussions
To check if our alignment method works, we made a
test program of simulation using homogeneous transfor-
mation matrix (HTM) w6x. We modeled all optical paths
76 S. Park et al. / Thin Solid Films 455 – 456 (2004) 72–77
Fig. 6. (a)–(e) Change of intensity at the detector during the align-
ment procedure along with changes of error parameters in simulation.
(f) Enlargement of (c) and (d) to show the change clearly.
of beam that pass through all components. The radii of
the first and second PD’s apertures and light spot were
set to be 1.5 mm, 0.5 mm and 1 mm, respectively. The
ds was 300 mm, and the translation error h was y5.0
mm. The a- and b-tilt angle errors were 0.015 rad and
y0.015 rad, respectively. We assumed that the light
spot was initially away from the center of the first PD’s
aperture by 9.0 mm. In this configuration the initial
value of Df step size was 30.08 and decreased to
smaller values according to Eq. (2). As shown in Fig.
5, the light spot (thin open circle) followed a spiral
trajectory during accessing process to find the first PD’s
aperture (bold open circle), and then finished the cen-
tering process perfectly, proving that our accessing and
centering algorithm worked. (The number of light spot
at the centering process was reduced to 1y5 for clarity.)
Fig. 6 shows the change of intensity at the detector
during the whole alignment procedure along with chang-
es of error parameters in simulation. Here, ST1, and
ST2 represent the first and second steps of alignment
algorithm, respectively, while AP and CP stand for
accessing and centering processes, respectively. Fig. 6a
shows the normalized signal at the first detector, show-
ing clear sharp increase of the light intensity between
iteration number 0 to 20 of the accessing process. During
this process, a-tilt angle and b-tilt angle vary simulta-
neously as shown in Fig. 6c,d. (Fig. 6f shows the
magnification of this accessing process to show the
change more clearly). From iteration number 20–930,
the first centering process was carried out. The centering
process along j-direction (iteration number from 20 to
700) used only the a-tilt angle adjustment, while that
along h-direction (iteration number from 700 to 930)
used only b-tilt angle adjustment as shown in Fig. 6c,d.
As explained above, the a-tilt angle change causes the
light spot to move in and out of the incidence plane.
Therefore, once the centering process along j-direction
is over, a-tilt angle error was corrected to be zero with
no more change during the rest of the alignment
procedure.
At the starting point of the second step (iteration
number from 930 to 1100) the AOI is different, and the
light spot of second PD could be partially blocked by
the second PD’s aperture. The b-tilt and h-translation
simultaneously change in order to maximize the intensity
of the second PD with holding the maximum intensity
of the first PD. Careful look at the final step tells that
the first PD’s signal stayed at 3.14 after iteration number
930, even if b-tilt and h-translation error was still being
corrected.
It should be noted that application of this algorithm
is not restricted to the ellipsometer alignment. It can be
used for any kind of alignment of a flat surface only
with a light source and its detector, possibly for the
alignment of lithographic system, for example.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Korea Science and
Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) grant No. R02-2003-
000-10074-0 and also by the Quantum Photonic Science
Research Center at Hanyang University.
 S. Park et al. / Thin Solid Films 455 – 456 (2004) 72–77 77

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