Dispersive white-light spectral interferometry with absolute phase retrieval to measure thin film

We present a white-light spectral interferometric technique for measuring the absolute spectral optical path difference (OPD) between the beams in a slightly dispersive Michelson interferometer with a thin-film structure as a mirror. We record two spectral interferograms to obtain the spectral interference signal and retrieve from it the spectral phase, which includes the effect of a cube beam splitter and the phase change on reflection from the thin-film structure. Knowing the effective thickness and dispersion of the beam splitter made of BK7 optical glass, we use a simple procedure to determine both the absolute spectral phase difference and OPD. The spectral OPD is measured for a uniform SiO2 thin film on a silicon wafer and is fitted to the theoretical spectral OPD to obtain the thin-film thickness. The theoretical spectral OPD is determined provided that the optical constants of the thin-film structure are known. We measure also the nonlinear-like spectral phase and fit it to the theoretical values in order to obtain the thin-film thickness. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America