A rotating-compensator fourier ellipsometer

Abstract A new digital Fourier ellipsometer is described which employs a rotating compensator and a fixed analyzer to measure the polarization of light reflected from the sample. This technique combines the advantages of null ellipsometry and previously reported rotating- analyzer Fourier ellipsometry (RAE) in that it is fast, precise, has data processing flexibility and operates at high detected levels, but removes the handedness ambiguity present in RAE. The instrument may be called a Fixed-Analyzer, Rotating-Compensator Ellipsometer, but in the interest of brevity the authors have chosen the acronym RCE.