Rotating polarizer, compensator, and analyzer ellipsometry

Abstract

In this paper we propose theoretically a set of ellipsometric configurations using a rotating polarizer, compensator, and analyzer at a speed ratio of N 1 ω: N 2 ω: N 3 ω. Different ellipsometric configurations can be obtained by giving different integral values to N 1, N 2, and N 3. All configurations are applied to bulk c-Si and GaAs to calculate the real and imaginary parts of the refractive index of the samples. The accuracies of all ellipsometric configurations are investigated in the presence of a hypothetical noise and with small misalignments of the optical elements. Moreover, the uncertainties in the ellipsometric parameters as functions of the uncertainties of the Fourier coefficients are studied. The comparison among different configurations reveals that the rotating compensator—analyzer configuration corresponds to the minimum error in the calculated optical parameters.