Nonuniform absorption of thermal radiation in the rapid thermal processing of wafers is a critical problem facing the semiconductor industry. This paper presents a parametric study of the radiative properties of patterned wafers with the smallest feature dimension down to 10 nm, considering the effects of temperature, wavelength, and angle of incidence. Various gate and trench sizes and their dimensions relative to the period are used in examining the effect of device scaling oil the spectral-directional absorptance via numerical solutions of the Maxwell equations. In the cases with trench size variation, the resonance cavity effect may increase the absorptance as the trench width increases. In the cases with trench size increases at several different filling ratios, the absorptance does not change much at small filling ratio. Wood's anomaly appears in the directional-hemispherical absorptance with gates oil top of silicon substrate. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.