TABLE OF CONTENTS Light reflected or refracted from a planar interface will be altered in its phase and amplitude. Measurement of the transformation of light following such an interaction can be used to characterize physical properties of the interface. If a thin film is contained at the surface between two media, for example, its refractive index and thickness can be determined. Polarimetry methods used to measure the electric vector emitted in the process of reflection or refraction are commonly referred to as ellipsometry, although, in principle, this term can be used interchangeably with polarimetry to describe any technique used to measure the polarization properties of light. In this chapter, the analysis of light interactions with planar interfaces containing any number of stratified thin films is discussed. The treatment of this topic is necessarily brief, and the monograph by Azzam and Bashara [5] is recommended for a more detailed discussion of ellipsometry.
This problem was treated in section 1.6 of Chapter 1, where the Fresnel coefficients for reflected and refracted light were calculated and presented in equations (1.74) to (1.77). The problem being treated is pictured in Figure 1.4, and it is convenient to represent the electric vector as a Jones vector having orthogonal components that are either parallel ( A i jp) or perpendicular ( A i js) to the plane of incidence (the plane of the figure). Here the superscript i = f and r refers to light...
