• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.172-179
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• 2021

A near-normal-incidence ellipsometer (NNIE) is suggested as an optical critical dimension (OCD) measurement system that is highly sensitive to the bottom defect of a sample with high-aspect-ratio structured patterns. Incident light passes through a polarizer and a phase retarder in sequence, and the reflected light from the sample also passes through them, but in reverse order. The operating principle of this NNIE, where a single polarizer and a single phase retarder are shared by the incident and reflected light, is studied, and a method to determine the ellipsometric constants from the measured intensities at proper combinations of the azimuthal angles of polarizer and retarder is presented.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.29-37
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• 2014

We have studied and demonstrated general, systematic error-correction methods for a dual rotating quarter-wave plate ellipsometer. To estimate and correct 5 systematic error sources (three offset angles and two unexpected retarder phase delays), we used 11 of the 25 Fourier components of the ellipsometry signal obtained in the absence of an optical sample. Using these 11 Fourier components, we can determine the errors from the 5 sources with nonlinear optimization methods. We found systematic errors ${\epsilon}_3$, ${\epsilon}_4$, ${\epsilon}_5$) are more sensitive to the inverted Mueller matrix than retarder phase delay errors (${\epsilon}_1$, ${\epsilon}_2$) because of their small condition numbers. To correct these systematic errors we have found that error of any variety must be less than 0.05 rad. Finally, we can use the magnitudes of these errors to correct the Mueller matrix of optical components. From our experimental ellipsometry signals, we can measure phase delay and the rotational angular position of its fast axis for a half-wave plate.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.201-209
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• 2022

The previously developed microspot spectroscopic ellipsometer (SE) is upgraded to a microspot SE compatible with the atomic force microscope (AFM). The focusing optical system of the previous microspot SE is optimized to incorporate an AFM head. In addition, the rotating compensator ellipsometer in polarizer-sample-compensator-analyzer configuration is adopted in order to minimize the negative effects caused by beam wobble. This research leads to the derivation of the expressions needed to get spectro-ellipsometric constants despite the fact that the employed rotating compensator is far from the ideal achromatic quarter-wave plate. The spot size of the developed microspot SE is less than 20 ㎛ while the AFM head is mounted. It operates in the wavelength range of 190-850 nm and has a measurement accuracy of δΔ ≤ 0.05° and δΨ ≤ 0.02°, respectively. Fast measurement of ≤3 s/sp is realized by precisely synchronizing the azimuthal angle of a rotating compensator with the spectrograph. The microspot SE integrated with an AFM is expected to be useful in characterizing the structure and optical properties of finely patterned samples.