New Product: Veeco’s Wyko NT9100 Optical Profiler Performs Superior Surface Metrology for Solar Industry

Product Briefing Outline: Veeco has introduced the Wyko® NT9100, a bench-top model of its ninth generation of high-performance, non-contact surface profilers. The NT9100 offers fast data acquisition, compliance to ISO and ASME standards, and configuration flexibility to ensure the best possible measurements for research and production environments. The system’s patent-pending dual-LED illumination provides nearly 5X the intensity of previous-generation halogen lamp sources, enabling extremely efficient collection of high-quality data on silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells and other low-reflective surfaces. Industry-leading Wyko Vision® software provides hundreds of built-in analyses, as well as automated measurement routines and pass-fail criteria for real-time process control and monitoring.

Problem: The Solar PV cell market is expending considerable effort and expense to increase efficiency and eliminate waste in the cell manufacturing process. To improve efficiency, silicon PV processes purposely introduce a roughness to the surface to reduce reflectivity, and apply a silicon nitride film as an antireflective coating to further increase the capture of photons. An intuitive, easy to operate optical inspection is required to ensure adequate surface roughness and consistent film thickness uniformity.  Another challenge for the industry is to find a way to measure and monitor the silver paste screen printing to ensure effective collection of electrons while simultaneously minimizing wasted material.

Solution: Veeco’s ninth-generation optical profilers provide industry leading, high-speed 3D surface metrology to the production floor. Using broad-spectrum interferometric techniques, the NT9100 profiler can obtain angstrom-level Z resolution that is independent of the magnification. A wide range of objectives provides fields of view from 50µm up to 6x8mm, all with the same vertical resolution. Additionally, the Veeco NT9100 now includes all the recently ratified ISO 25718 analyses for 3D areal surface measurements.

Utilizing the patent-pending dual high brightness LED illuminator, the NT9100 provides ample intensity to achieve reliable, high-quality measurements from highly textured PV cell surfaces. This capability, coupled with the instrument’s ability to acquire the powerful ISO-standard S type parameters, makes it easier than ever to quantify and characterize highly textured surfaces. A simple-to-use Windows-based interface, motorized control of focus, and (optional) stage positioning make short work of these and other complex measurement and analysis tasks.

Applications: The NT9100 optical profiler is capable of addressing a wide range of measurements and applications, including film thickness (direct measurement of optically transparent films), step heights, trace width, trace height, etch depth, volume (of a trace, via, or other geometry), surface roughness, waviness, and curvature. Furthermore, the NT9100 profiler is demonstrably gage R&R capable.

Platform: In addition to the interferometric hardware, the table-top NT9100 system includes the control computer (running Windows XP SP3, and the Vision™ control software), and a standard-resolution camera (megapixel camera optional) on a dual-LED illuminator head with a generous 10mm, closed-loop scan mechanism. The system can be purchased with interferometric objectives from 1.5X up to 100X, and turret mounts are available for a single objective, or a four-position, motorized, programmable turret. A variety of field-of-view magnifiers allow adjustment of final magnification by a factor of ½ up to 2X. Other options include a programmable stage, field stitching for larger fields of view, film measurements, a MATLAB™ interface for custom analyses, and a SureVision template-based analysis for enhanced automation capability. Finally, for optimal performance, an isolation platform is available. With its standard components and large suite of options and configurations, it has never been easier to ideally tailor the NT9100 to suit your individual application needs.

Availability: The NT9100 Optical Profiler is available immediately. Please contact Veeco (www.veeco.com) for additional information.