A Dynamic Model of a High-Temperature Arc Lamp

High-temperature high-pressure arc lamps are used to thermally process semiconductor wafers. An accurate dynamic model that links the radiation output to the current input would facilitate the design of a power circuit that optimizes energy transfer to the arc. In this paper, a dynamic arc model is derived using averaging of the energy balance equation over spatial domains. This space averaging approach (the “finite-volume method”) accurately models the energy balance equation, as tested with both steady and transient arc currents, including high-energy pulses with a current amplitude range from 400 A to 27 kA and a pulsewidth of a millisecond or less.