TY - JOUR A1 - Stockmann, Jörg M. A1 - Hertwig, Andreas A1 - Beck, Uwe T1 - Visualization of low-contrast surface modifications: Thin films, printed pattern, laser-induced changes, imperfections, impurities, and degradation N2 - Visualization of surface modifications may be very challenging for coating/substrate systems of either almost identical optical constants, e.g. transparent films on substrates of the same material, or minor film thickness, substance quantity and affected area, e.g. ultra-thin or island films. Methods for visualization are optical microscopy (OM), imaging ellipsometry (IE), and referenced spectroscopic ellipsometry (RSE). Imaging ellipsometry operates at oblique incidence near Brewster angle of the bare, clean or unmodified substrate. In this configuration, reflected intensities are rather weak. However, the contrast to add-on and sub-off features may be superior. Referenced spectroscopic ellipsometry operates in a two-sample configuration but with much higher intensities. In many cases, both ellipsometric techniques reveal and visualize thin films, printed-pattern, laser-induced changes, and impurities better than optical microscopy. In particular for stratified homogeneous modifications, ellipsometric techniques give access to modelling and hence thickness determination. Modifications under investigation are polymer foil residue on silicon, laser-induced changes of ta-C:H coatings on 100Cr6 steel, imperfections of ta-C:H on thermal silicon oxide, degradation of glass, thin film tin oxide pattern on silicon, printed and dried pattern of liquids such as deionized water, cleaning agents, and dissolved silicone. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. T2 - International Conference on Spectroscopic Ellipsometry (ICSE-7) CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 06.06.2016 KW - Optical microscopy (OM) KW - Imaging ellipsometry (IE) KW - Referenced spectroscopic ellipsometry (RSE) KW - Thin films KW - Impurities KW - Degradation PY - 2016 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2016.10.145 SN - 0196-4332 VL - 2017 IS - 421 SP - 807 EP - 812 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-42136 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fischer, Daniel A1 - Hertwig, Andreas A1 - Beck, Uwe A1 - Lohse, V. A1 - Negendank, D. A1 - Kormunda, M. A1 - Esser, N. T1 - Thin SnOx films for surface plasmon resonance enhanced ellipsometric gas sensing (SPREE) N2 - Background: Gas sensors are very important in several fields like gas monitoring, safety and environmental applications. In this approach, a new gas sensing concept is investigated which combines the powerful adsorption probability of metal oxide conductive sensors (MOS) with an optical ellipsometric readout. This concept Shows promising results to solve the problems of cross sensitivity of the MOS concept. Results: Undoped tin oxide (SnOx) and iron doped tin oxide (Fe:SnOx) thin add-on films were prepared by magnetron sputtering on the top of the actual surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing gold layer. The films were tested for their sensitivity to several gas species in the surface plasmon resonance enhanced (SPREE) gas measurement. It was found that the undoped tin oxide (SnOx) shows higher sensitivities to propane (C3H8) then to carbon monoxide (CO). By using Fe:SnOx, this relation is inverted. This behavior was explained by a change of the amount of binding sites for CO in the layer due to this iron doping. For hydrogen (H2) no such relation was found but the sensing ability was identical for both layer materials. This observation was related to a different sensing mechanism for H2 which is driven by the Diffusion into the layer instead of adsorption on the surface. Conclusion: The gas sensing selectivity can be enhanced by tuning the properties of the thin film overcoating. A relation of the binding sites in the doped and undoped SnOx films and the gas sensing abilities for CO and C3H8 was found. This could open the path for optimized gas sensing devices with different coated SPREE sensors. KW - Doped tin oxide KW - Ellipsometry KW - Gas sensing KW - Surface plasmon KW - Resonance KW - Thin films KW - Transparent conductive oxides PY - 2017 DO - https://doi.org/10.3762/bjnano.8.56 SN - 2190-4286 VL - 8 SP - 522 EP - 529 AN - OPUS4-39391 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rybachuk, Maksym A1 - Hertwig, Andreas A1 - Weise, Matthias A1 - Sahre, Mario A1 - Männ, Marion A1 - Beck, Uwe A1 - Bell, J. M. T1 - Near infrared optical materials from polymeric amorphous carbon synthesized by collisional plasma process N2 - The synthesis of polymerlike amorphous carbon (a-C:H) thin-films by microwave excited collisional hydrocarbon plasma process is reported. Stable and highly aromatic a-C:H were obtained containing significant inclusions of poly(p-phenylene vinylene) (PPV). PPV confers universal optoelectronic properties to the synthesized material. That is a-C:H with tailor-made refractive index are capable of becoming absorption-free in visible (red)-near infrared wavelength range. Production of large aromatic hydrocarbon including phenyl clusters and/or particles is attributed to enhanced coagulation of elemental plasma species under collisional plasma conditions. Detailed structural and morphological changes that occur in a-C:H during the plasma synthesis are also described. KW - Kohlenstoffschichten KW - Plasmachemie KW - PA-CVD KW - Amorphous state KW - Carbon KW - Coagulation KW - Hydrogen KW - Optical materials KW - Plasma collision processes KW - Plasma deposition KW - Refractive index KW - Thin films PY - 2010 DO - https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3431292 SN - 0003-6951 SN - 1077-3118 VL - 96 IS - 21 SP - 211909-1 - 211909-3 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville, NY AN - OPUS4-21365 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Duwe, M. A1 - Quast, J.-H. A1 - Schneider, S. A1 - Fischer, Daniel A1 - Beck, Uwe T1 - Thin-film metrology of tilted and curved surfaces by imaging Mueller-matrix ellipsometry N2 - For the vast majority of ellipsometric measurements, the application of planar substrates is mandatory and requires a proper sample alignment prior to the measurement. Here, the authors present a generalized approach of how to extract the isotropic ellipsometric sample parameters from an imaging Mueller-matrix measurement even if the sample is significantly misaligned. They validate the method by layer-thickness calculations based on imaging Mueller-matrix measurements of flat crystalline silicon samples that were misaligned on purpose. Furthermore, they also exploit this method’s capabilities to perform spatially resolved layer-thickness measurements of a single-layer indium-tin-oxide coating on a fused-silica microlens without the need of realignment or repositioning of the sample during the measurement. T2 - 8th International conference on spectroscopic ellipsometry (ICSE-8) CY - Barcelona, Spain DA - 26.05.2019 KW - Metrology KW - Thin films KW - Polarization spectroscopy KW - Spectroskopic Imaging KW - Mueller-Matrix imaging ellipsometry PY - 2019 DO - https://doi.org/10.1116/1.5122757 SN - 2166-2746 SN - 2327-9877 VL - 37 IS - 6 SP - 062908 PB - AIP CY - New York, NY AN - OPUS4-50209 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -