US Patent 7626712 Methods and systems for characterizing semiconductor materials

Methods for determining parameters of a semiconductor material, for example, non-classical substrates such as silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates, strained silicon-on-insulator (sSOI) substrates, silicon-germanium-on-insulator (GeOI) substrates, and strained silicon-germanium-on-insulator (sGeOI) substrates are described. The method provides steps for transforming data corresponding to the semiconductor material from real space to reciprocal space. The critical points are isolated in the reciprocal state and corresponding critical energies of the critical points are determined. The difference between the critical energies may be used to determine a thickness of a layer of the semiconductor material, in particular, a quantum confined layer.