Improvements in the future development of semiconductor materials will possibly require the rapid monitoring of the surfaces of these materials as they are prepared. One of the areas of special interest is the molecular deposition of so-called thin films and other semiconductor materials onto the surface of silicon. The chemical composition and thickness of these films ultimately controls the electronic behavior of these materials when they are made into semiconductor "chips." other areas of importance are laser annealing of semiconductors and the oxidation of metallic surfaces. The chemical composition and the thickness of materials grown on substrata can be monitored by irradiating a surface with polarized light. The polarization state of the reflected light is then changed, and from an analysis of the incident polarized light and the reflected polarized light the chemical composition and the thickness can then be determined. Devices which perform this operation are known as ellipsometers. While current devices lend themselves to great precision they are relatively slow and cannot be used to monitor rapid events, e.g., in a billionth of a second. In the present project a new type of ellipsometer is proposed which is c@able of monitoring the rapid changes in the surface of materials in a billionth of a second, and is known as a nanosecond polarimeter or ellipsometer. This new ellipsometer has no moving parts and requires only a short laser pulse of circular polarized light to determine completely the chemical composition and thickness of the surface material. The design of the ellipsometer also allows it to be used with continuous optical sources as well as with pulsed optical sources. As a result this ellipsometer can be used to investigate and monitor a wide range of surface phenomena.The potential applications as described by the company: The proposed ellipsometer will be able to monitor the rapid growth of materials surfaces and enable us to understand better the phenomenon of the oxidation (rusting) of materials.
