What are the benefits of Imaging Ellipsometry compared to conventional Ellipsometry?

Imaging Ellipsometers have a spatial resolution down to 1 µm, easily beating the resolution limits of conventional ellipsometers.
A 2D map with more than 500000 points is created within a single measurement. Conventional ellipsometers need to scan and move the sample to measure an areal 2D map.
The intrinsic Ellipsometric Contrast-enhanced Microscopy (ECM) allows for a very fast detection of film-thickness and refractive index variations without the need to run a full ellipsometric measurement.
“First find, then measure”: The image live view of an Imaging Ellipsometer assists you to identify the relevant sample spots of interest prior to the ellipsometric measurement. It discloses even the smallest surface modifications including sub-nanometer thickness steps! Those features are not visible by “overview cameras” or “parallel supervision cameras”, used in some conventional ellipsometers, which therefore have to rely on time-consuming areal scanning in the search for specific surface features.
The patented Region-of-Interest concept (ROI concept) allows focusing the measurement and the data analysis on selected features within the field of view.
The spatial resolution is independent of the probing spot size. Hence, no tight beam focusing is required.

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