Inexpensive Home-Made Single Wavelength Ellipsometer (λ = 633 nm) for Measuring the Optical Constant of Nanostructured Materials

Abstract

Inexpensive home-made Single wavelength Ellipsometry with RAE (Rotating Analyser Ellipsometer) configuration has been developed. Spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) is an optical measurement technique which is based on the measurement of the change of the phase difference (Δ) and the amplitude ratio (ψ) between p and s linear polarized of reflected (or transmitted) light. Our RAE configuration system composed of polarizer, sample, analyzer, detector, and He-Ne laser (λ = 633 nm) that acted as the monochromatic light source. To test the reliability of our SE system, we measure the optical constant of Au bulk and Cr (30 nm thick) film. The optical constant and the thickness were extracted by employing the pseudo-dielectric function and numerical inversion which is based on the secant method, the ψ and Δ of our SE data which is modelled by Fresnel equation. From the extraction using the secant method we obtain the optical constant of the Au bulk sample with n = 0.11 to 0.22 and k = 3.26 to 3.37 which is close to that of using pseudo-dielectric method. We obtain the same result for Cr film with n = 3.66 to 3.81 and k = 5.32 to 5.38 which is close to the result from reference. These results show that our inexpensive home-made Single wavelength Ellipsometry instrument and the extraction method are reliable for determining the optical constant of nanostructured materials.