Lateral ellipsometry resolution for imaging ellipsometry measurement

Abstract

As an approach to integrate both single-point measurement ellipsometry and optical microscopy, imaging ellipsometry possesses the capability of measurement of distributions of optical constants and/or thickness of sample surfaces. Considering the exact distinguishment of neighboring surfaces from imaging ellipsometry measurement, in this note, we propose to use a new criterion for the lateral ellipsometry resolution: about 2.23 fold of the Abbe diffraction limit for a microscope. This criterion will be helpful for the estimation of the applicability of an imaging ellipsometer into the evaluation of micro-patterned surfaces.

Reflection and transmission ellipsometry measurement under incoherent superposition of light

“…For the Si thin film / quartz (Si/SiO2) sample, the reflection and transmission ellipsometric parameters were acquired with a home-built ellipso-microscope, which can be used in either reflection or transmission configurations. Figures 1 illustrates the optical arrangement of the ellipso-microscope, which was built based on our previous work [13][14][15][16]. The light from the Xenon lamp passes through an optical filter (=5905 nm), a convergence lens system (NAc=0.0088), a linear Gran-Thompson polarizer, and a compensator (a quarter wave-plate).…”

Characterizing optical phase-change materials with spectroscopic ellipsometry and polarimetry

“…This combination leads to a smallest resolution of ≈ 1 µm, depending on the illuminating wavelength and the imaging microscope objective. Systematic study on the lateral resolution on imaging ellipsometry has stablished a criterion on this magnitude of 2.23-fold of the Abbe diffraction limit for the imaging microscope (i.e., 2.23λ 2NA where NA is the numerical aperture of the imaging microscope objective) [32]. Additionally, because high lateral resolution images are provided by the instrument, it is possible to easily select with µm resolution the regions of interest from which extract the ellipsometer parameters avoiding problems in the spot positioning of non-imaging ellipsometers.…”

Maximum thickness determinable by imaging ellipsometry

“…1,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] The spatial resolution of an imaging ellipsometer depends on that of the microscope. 12) The imaging ellipsometer collects reflection beams with a microarray sensor through the imaging system, and every microarray pixel element is used as a single ellipsometer. The larger the numerical aperture of the imaging system, the smaller the spatial resolution, and then the more details of film thickness distribution can be evaluated.…”