For more than two decades, Michigan-based company k-Space has been one of the world’s leading suppliers of thin-film production monitoring tools.

Thin-films have become increasingly important in recent years, due to the fact that they are an important component of semiconductors, which in turn are key-technologies in LED lighting and solar panels.

One of the modular in-line monitoring tools that k-Space offers is kSA ICE, which primarily measures surface roughness. The Integrated Control for Epitaxy system (ICE) is the result of more than15 years of in-situ monitoring development and refinement by k-Space. The kSA ICE is ideal for today’s MOCVD reactors with either high speed or low speed rotation and limited optical access.

The kSA ICE in situ metrology system also allows to monitor real-time temperature, reflectivity, growth rate, film thickness, substrate curvature and film stress during MOCVD deposition, at rotation speeds up to 2,000 RPM.