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Ellipsometry makes use of the Fresnel features provided by polarized light and the modification to the state of polarization by the light’s interaction with matter. The name refers to the effect of turning a linearly polarized vector into an elliptical one. This method does not need the magnitude of intensity or the change of intensity to produce the required result; only the polarization behavior is relevant. The main applications are the recovery of optical constants and the analysis of thin layer systems. Single-wavelength ellipsometry creates a single set of data and is primarily applicable to product control, general surface definition, and single-layer calculations. Spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) obtains data at many wavelengths, which enables the use of fit functions, multilayer data reduction, and the creation of reference data. Relevant literature exists in handbooks on optical constants,2 and techniques, instrumentation, and data-reduction methods are also well documented.
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