INTERFERENCE METHOD FOR MONITORING THE REFRACTIVE-INDEX AND THE THICKNESS OF TRANSPARENT FILMS DURING DEPOSITION

An interferometric method is described for simultaneous measurement of the refractive index and the thickness of transparent isotropic films during the deposition process. Two laser beams are focused impinging at two different angles onto the film. The intensity of the beams reflected from the growing film shows minima and maxima, which are counted and evaluated to determine the refractive index n and the thickness d of the film in the range of some 100 nm up to several micrometers using 633-nm laser light. n and d can be determined within an accuracy better than 1%, if the thickness is larger than three times the vacuum wavelength of the laser. The measurements are well in accordance with calculations of the intensity modulation. The method can easily be extended to multilayer systems.