High speed interferometric ellipsometer

A novel high speed interferometric ellipsometer (HSIE) is proposed and demonstrated. It is based on a novel differential-phase decoder which is able to convert the phase modulation into amplitude modulation in a polarized heterodyne interferometer. Not only high detection sensitivity but also fast response ability on ellipsometric parameters (EP) measurements based on amplitude-sensitive method is constructed whereas different amplitudes with respect to P and S polarized heterodyne signals in this phase to amplitude modulation conversion is discussed. The ability of HSIE was verified by testing a quarter wave plate while a real time differential-phase detection of a liquid crystal device versus applied voltage by using HSIE was demonstrated too. These results confirm that HSIE is able to characterize the optical property of specimen in terms of EP at high speed and high detection sensitivity experimentally. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.