Imaging Ellipsometry Study Of Multi-Layer Microflakes

By H. Rafla-Yuan, D. Hoenig

Ellipsometers are commonly used for characterizing thin film coatings. Although they continue to be useful for many applications, the size of the samples has to be restricted to be no less than a few millimeters. In this paper we report on using an imaging ellipsometer to study the characteristics of an SiO2 coating on aluminum microflakes.

This novel approach overcomes the lateral resolution limit of conventional ellipsometers, providing access to samples with very small dimensions. A comparison was also made between the coating thickness obtained from imaging ellipsometry and electron microscopy.