Abstract

The interference of light has been analyzed for a film structure by considering that a spatial separation exists for the two neighboring light beams to be interfered in the space. There is a significant difference between the situations of the interference with or without consideration of the spatial effect, especially around the region where the phase delay $\delta =\pi$ and 2π by taking the example of the one-layered ${\text{SiO}}_{\text{2}}/\text{Si}$ structure. It is reasonable to extract the optical parameters by neglecting the spatial effect only for the thinner film with a thickness much smaller than a wavelength, which satisfies the condition that $\delta <\pi$; otherwise, the film equation used for the periodic or nonperiodic structures will be modified by including the spatial effect in the data analysis and applications.

© 2007 Optical Society of America

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