ABSTRACT
This chapter provides general descriptions for principles, measurement, and data analysis method employed widely in the ellipsometry field. It describes, physical backgrounds and examples of ellipsometry analysis. Until the early 1970s, only an ellipsometry instrument called the null ellipsometry had been used for measurements. Ellipsometry instruments that are used can be classified into two major categories: instruments that use rotating optical elements and instruments that use a photoelastic modulator. From spectroscopic ellipsometry, various information including optical constants and thickness parameters can be obtained. It should be emphasized that an optical model used in ellipsometry analysis merely represents an approximated sample structure, and obtained results are not necessarily correct even when the fitting is sufficiently good. Accordingly, when the optical constants or layer structures of a sample are not well known, we must justify ellipsometry results using other measurement methods.
