This paper discusses an innovation in reflectometry that presents cost and implementation advantages over configurations currently in use. We demonstrate that the semi-continuous wavelength spectrum used by a spectroscopic reflectometer can be replaced with a small set of fixed wavelength optical sources with only a small loss in measurement accuracy. The resulting instrumentation is called a spectrum sampling reflectometer (SSR). Spectrum sampling can be achieved using inexpensive LEDs and/or lasers as the optical sources. Theoretical calculations for instrument accuracy are shown for both LEDs and lasers along with experimental data from a prototype system using LEDs.

Date Published: 18 August 2005
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 5878, Advanced Characterization Techniques for Optics, Semiconductors, and Nanotechnologies II, 58780I (18 August 2005); doi: 10.1117/12.613197

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5878:
Advanced Characterization Techniques for Optics, Semiconductors, and Nanotechnologies II
Angela Duparre; Bhanwar Singh; Zu-Han Gu, Editor(s)