Spectroscopic ellipsometry for active nano- and meta-materials

23 págs.
Spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) is a powerful technique for the characterization of materials, which is able to probe in a sensitive way their nanostructure as well as to get rich information about their dielectric properties, through the interaction of polarized light with matter. In the present trend of developing functional advanced materials of increasing complexity for a wide range of technological applications, works involving SE have flourished and have been reported in an increasing number of articles, reviews, and books. In this context, the aim of this paper is to provide for those among material scientists who are not SE specialists, a concise and updated overview of the capabilities of SE for the characterization of the so-called nano- and metamaterials, especially those presenting active functionalities. Key aspects for a reliable material characterization by SE are given: choice of the setup and measurement conditions, measurement accuracy, definition of a model, sensitivity to parameters. Also, very recent works involving SE are highlighted, especially those dealing with the development of building block materials for optimized or active plasmonics applications, the still ongoing exploration of small-size effects on the dielectric response of matter, the characterization of metamaterials, and the design of detectors with improved accuracy based on coupling of the phase sensitivity of SE with metamaterials engineering.