Compact, Affordable Spectroscopic Ellipsometer for Thin Film Measurement

Mikropack GmbH has introduced a compact, easy-to-use, bench-top spectroscopic ellipsometer for thin film measurement. The SpecEL-2000-VIS is ideal for semi-transparent flat samples such as wafers and glass plates. It provides fast, precise measurement of layer thickness, refractive index, absorption and components ratio at the touch of a button.

Half the price of standard spectroscopic ellipsometry equipment, the all-in-one system has a footprint of only 52x33x24cm and features an integrated light source, spectrometer and two polarisers. It comes with a 32-Bit Windows PC featuring easy-to-use software and measures polarised light reflected from the surface of the substrate to determine the thickness and the refractive index of the material as a function of wavelength.

Depending on the layer and substrate material, the SpecEl can detect layer thickness between 1 nanometre and 5 micrometres, and refractive indices over the full spectral range. After putting a sample on the wafer-chuck, analysis is carried out within seconds at the touch of a button.

The software enables experiment methods to be configured and saved for one-step analysis. The powerful analysis software provides a range of modelling possibilities such as Cauchy, OJL,Tauc-Lorentz, Drude, EMA and different types of oscillator.

Compared to reflectometry, spectroscopic ellipsometry measures relative changes in the phase and amplitude of the light instead of absolute intensity. Ellipsometry is therefore independent from any reference measurement and multiple parameters can be determined simultaneously.