Ellipsometric configurations using a phase retarder and a rotating polarizer and analyzer at any speed ratio.

In this paper, we propose an ellipsometer using a phase retarder and rotating polarizer and analyzer at a speed ratio 1:N. Different ellipsometric configurations are presented by assuming N = 1, 2, and 3. Moreover, two values of the offset angle of the retarder are considered for each ellipsometric configuration. The Mueller formalism is employed to extract the Stokes parameters, from which the intensity received by the detector is obtained. The optical properties of c-Si are calculated using all configurations. A comparison between different configurations is carried out considering the effect of the noise on the results and the uncertainties in the ellipsometric parameters as functions of the uncertainties of the Fourier coefficients. It is found that the alignment of the phase retarder has a crucial impact on the results and the ellipsometric configuration with speed ratio 1:1 is preferred over the other configurations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]