Radiative Heat Transfer With Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods

Monte Carlo simulation is often used to solve radiative transfer problems where complex physical phenomena and geometries must be handled. Slow convergence is a well known disadvantage of such methods. In this paper we demonstrate that a significant improvement in computation time can be achieved by using Quasi-Monte Carlo methods to simulate Rapid Thermal Processing, which is an important technique for the production of semiconductor wafers, as well as many other industrial processes. Several factors are considered including surface absorptivity, position of wafer surface to heat source, and choice of quasi-random sequence. A comparison of the fractional and discrete absorption methods is also made. Results show accelerated convergence and improved accuracy of QMC over the standard Monte Carlo approach, and indicate when the fractional and discrete absorption methods should be used to obtain optimal results. This research was supported in part by the Institute for Mathematics and it..