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Ellipsometry

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Handbook of Advanced Non-Destructive Evaluation

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Abstract

Over the past few decades, ellipsometry has become an important and widely used optical metrology tool in scientific research and industrial manufacturing due to its nondestructive nature and inherent simplicity. There have been increasing needs to extend the capabilities of ellipsometry to spatially resolve materials and structures with micro- and nanoscale features. In this chapter, the basic principle of ellipsometry will be reviewed, and two microellipsometry techniques that employ high numerical aperture (NA) objective lens capable of characterizing structures and materials with high spatial resolution are presented. The use of high NA lens collects more oblique rays to increase the ellipsometric signal while providing high spatial resolution of these techniques for spatially resolved characterization tasks. The working principles and experimental setups in each case are discussed mathematically and demonstrated schematically, respectively. Applications of these techniques to characterize patterned surface structures, unresolved surface features, residual axial birefringence, and micro-optical components are subsequently summarized. Finally, taking advantage of the recent rapid developments in vector optical fields, rapid polarimetric measurement techniques utilizing parallel polarization measurement that can extract the entire polarization information from the sample with a single intensity snapshot will be described.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Optical-Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China

    Jian Chen & Qiwen Zhan

  2. Department of Electro-Optics and Photonics, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA

    Qiwen Zhan

Authors
  1. Jian Chen
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  2. Qiwen Zhan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Qiwen Zhan .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, USA

    Nathan Ida

  2. Center for Nondestructive Evaluation, Iowa State University Center for Nondestructive Evaluation, Ames, Iowa, USA

    Norbert Meyendorf

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Akron, Akron, USA

    Ida Nathan

  2. Center for Nondestructive Evaluation, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA

    Norbert Meyendorf

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Chen, J., Zhan, Q. (2018). Ellipsometry. In: Ida, N., Meyendorf, N. (eds) Handbook of Advanced Non-Destructive Evaluation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30050-4_8-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30050-4_8-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-30050-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-30050-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference EngineeringReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

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