Ellipsometry Webinar

Spectroscopic Ellipsometry (SE) is a powerful analytical tool for the characterization of thin films in many materials, including semiconductors, dielectric films, metals and polymers. SE is a non-contact, non-destructive optical technique, which measures the polarization change of reflected or transmitted light after interaction with a sample. This change in polarization is related to material properties.

Ellipsometry is primarily used to measure film thickness, the refractive index (n) and the extinction coefficient (k), but it can also be employed to investigate other properties that affect the polarization of light, such as roughness, optical anisotropy (birefringence), crystalline nature, composition, optical bandgap, and thermal expansion. In order to determine these parameters, a model is constructed that describes the optical parameters of the sample. Then, the unknown parameters are fitted to obtain a best match between the theoretical response and the experimental data. Measurement precision is excellent and can be better than 0.1nm for thickness and better than 0.001 for n and k.