Angle Resolved Scattering Combined with Optical Profilometry as Tools in Thin Films and Surface Survey

The work presents an application of two scanning optical techniques, i.e. optical profilometry and angle resolved scattering method. The first method measures the light reflected from a film during scan of the surface, while the second method measures light intensity as a function of the scattering angle. The angle resolved scattering and optical profilometry measurements, being complementary to the atomic force microscopy, give information about surface topography. Scattered radiation measured by angle resolved scattering and optical profilometry is a function of height and slope of microfacets. The analysis of images allows to determine the most important statistic surface parameters, like roughness, height distribution and autocorrelation length, in large wavelength range by the determination of power spectral density function. The fast Fourier transform of angle resolved scattering and optical profilometry images permits to determine the distribution of surface features in the inverse space, such as periodicity and anisotropy. In this paper the results obtained for porous SiO₂, SiO₂-TiO₂ blends, TiN and polymer thin films have been presented. The paper demonstrates the usefulness of the angle resolved scattering and optical profilometry for the surface and volume thin film inspection.