Calibrating an ellipsometer using x-ray reflectivity

Abstract

X-ray reflectivity has been used to find the optical refractive index of polymer thin film in order to calibrate a Stokes ellipsometer for film thickness measurements during the deposition procedure. A thin, spun-cast film of poly(tert-butyl acrylate) (PtBA) was made with a film thickness of ∼500 Å. An x-ray reflectivity measurement was taken and the data were fit to determine the thickness of the PtBA film and the underlying silicon–oxide layer. This measurement was then used to calculate the optical refractive index for PtBA at the ellipsometer wavelength. Using this value for the refractive index subsequently allowed us to determine the film thickness for a series of PtBA films made by using a number of polymer solution concentrations resulting in film thickness ranging from 100 to 1300 Å. These film thicknesses were found to be generally the same as those found using x-ray reflectivity. The success of this procedure suggests a useful method for calibrating an ellipsometer for fast in-lab measurements, especially on ultrathin films when simultaneous determination of the film thickness and the refractive index is less reliable.