Sensitive identification and measurement of a weak anisotropic thin film from the reflectance angular spectrum

Abstract

A technique for determining the optical constants of an anisotropic thin film is developed here. Instead of complicated phase measurement, an optical arrangement that involves at least two resonant dips in the reflectance angular spectrum supports a method for sensitively determining the anisotropic optical constants and clearly distinguishing the anisotropic from the isotropic optical properties. Multi-resonant dips including waveguide modes and surface plasmon resonance are applied in detecting the ellipsoid distribution of the refractive index.