LASER THERMAL PROCESSING APPARATUS AND METHOD

摘要

A method of and apparatus (10) for performing laser thermal processing (LTP) of a workpiece (74) having one or more workpiece fields (78). The apparatus comprises a pulsed, solid state light source (14) having more than 1000 spatial modes (M) and capable of emitting one or more pulses of radiation with a temporal pulse length between 1 nanosecond and 1 microsecond, a workpiece stage (70) for supporting the workpiece, and an illumination optical system having an exposure field (64). The system is arranged between the laser light source and the workpiece stage so as to illuminate within the exposure field at least one of the one or more workpiece fields with the one or more pulses of radiation, with an irradiance uniformity of less than +5%.