Quantum tunneling photoacoustic spectroscopy for the characterization of thin films

Thin films continue to show great promise for improving a wide variety of devices in applications such as medical instrumentation, material processing, and astronomical instrumentation. While ellipsometry and reflectometry are standard characterization techniques for determining thickness and refractive index, these techniques tend to require highly reflective or polished films and rely on empirical equations. We have created Quantum Tunneling Photoacoustic Spectroscopy (QTPAS) that uses light induced ultrasound to obtain thickness and refractive index estimates of transparent films. We present QTPAS to be used for the estimation of properties of single layer films as an alternative to ellipsometry and give qualitative sample measurements of the technique's estimated parameters.

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