Abstract

A general method based upon reflectance and transmittance measurements in the infrared region has been developed for the determination of the optical constants <i>n</i>(<i>v</i>) and <i>k</i>(<i>v</i>) of thin films deposited on any substrate (transparent or not). The corresponding computer program, written in FORTRAN 77, involves three main parts: (1) a matrix formalism to compute reflection and transmission coefficients of multilayered systems; (2) an iterative Newton-Raphson method to estimate the optical constants by comparison of the calculated and experimental values; and (3) a fast Kramers-Krönig transform to improve the accuracy of calculating the refractive index. The first part of this program can be used independently to simulate reflection and transmission spectra of any multilayered system using various experimental conditions. Two practical examples are given for illustration. Simulation of reflection spectra at grazing incidence for thin films deposited on a metal surface and determination of the optical constants for thin CaF₂ layers deposited on a silicon substrate are presented.

Determination of Optical Constants from Reflectance or Transmittance Measurements on Bulk Crystals or Thin Films

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Problem of ambiguity in the determination of optical constants of thin absorbing films from spectroscopic reflectance and transmittance measurements

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Determination of optical constants of thin films and multilayer stacks by use of concurrent reflectance, transmittance, and ellipsometric measurements

Chubing Peng, Rongguang Liang, J. Kevin Erwin, Warren Bletscher, Kenichi Nagata, and Masud Mansuripur
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