Design of a submillimeter ellipsometer for the measurement of complex indices of refraction of materials

The principle objective of the research is the design and fabrication of an automated submillimeter ellipsometer. The ellipsometer has been designed to measure the amplitude and phase of submillimeter radiation reflected from or transmitted through materials. The key component of the ellipsometer is a birefringent quartz plate which has an adjustable incidence angle. Control of this angle, as predicted by multiple reflection theory for birefringent dielectric plates
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, allows the retarder to be precisely oriented to produce a quarter wave retardation without the use of AR coatings. The radiation source is provided by CW optically pumped submillimeter laser lines, and a liquid He-cooled bolometer is utilized as the detector. Results of dielectric constant data measured with the ellipsometer will be reported.