Optical characterization

technique to measure optical

constants of thin films

Tek Narsingh Malla(07)

PHYS 401 (Engineering Physics)

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Thin Film: Introduction
Any object with one of its dimensions
very much less than the other two
Formed by depositing material onto a
clean supporting substrate to build of film
thickness, rather than by thinning down
bulk material
The properties of thin films depend on
the method of deposition
Required properties and versatility can be
obtained by choosing proper method of
deposition
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Thin film characterization techniques

Wide variety of characterization techniques are

used to evaluate material quality of thin films
before using them in applications

Structural properties of films are studied by SEM

RMS roughness of films are studied by AFM
Chemical composition measurement are made by FT-IR
spectroscopy
Static and dynamic water contact angle are measured
using contact angle meter
Optical properties of opto-electronic films are measured
by spectrophotometer

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Optical
Characterization
Film thickness
Semiconductor band gap
Refractive index
Absorption coefficient
Absorbance
Transmittance
Reflectivity

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 Arrows indicate
transmission and reflection
Schematic view of substrate and thin film.
at different interfaces.

d = thickness of film
n = refractive index of film
= absorption coefficient

The basic eq. for interference fringes is

2nd = m
where m is an integer for maxima an d half integer for minima, n is
refractive index, and d is the thickness of the film
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Transmittance of samples deposited on glass
substrate

The wavelike structure is caused due to the interaction of the beam

transmitted from different interfaces
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The transmission T for the normal incidence resulted from the interference
of the wave transmitted from three interfaces can be written as:

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For maximum and
minimum points of
interferences cos()
=1, so TM and Tm
curves as the upper
and lower bounding
functions of
transmittance can be
found by fitting the
two below curves to
these points as:

The upper bounding function

TM passes through the If Ts is the maximum value of
maxima of spectrum and Tm transmission of substrate, then substrate
through the minima as refractive index s can be given by
shown in figure, where the
envelope for a simulated
transmission is shown.
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From the above
equations, we get

The right hand side is

independent of the
thickness of the film.
Substituting C and A,
we get

where

If n1 and n1* are the refractive indices calculated from two

consecutive maxima or minima corresponding to two wavelengths
1 and 2, then the thickness of the film d can be obtained from

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 Different regions have different absorption. For the strong
absorption region where interference disappear, the absorption
coefficient , is given by
in which T0 =
Ax/B

In the region of medium absorption where interference fringes

appear distinctly in the transmission spectra, can be obtained by

where

The optical energy gap, Eg is another important quantity that

characterizes semiconductors and dielectric materials. An
approximate functional dependency of on energy of photons is
given by the expression
where A is dimensional constant, Eg is the optical
bandgap, and p is an index representing the
transition order
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For indirect optical bandgap, p=1/2, the curve (E)1/2 E tends
asymptotically towards a linear section. Other values of p (usually
2) suggest a direct optical bandgap.
As shown in figure above, Eg is the intersection of E axis with a fit
to linear section of (E)1/2 E curve.
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Swanepoel, R, Determination of the Thickness and Optical Constants of
Amorphous Silicon. Journal of Physics, E 16, pp. 1214-1224, 1983.

Thank you

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