Optimizing power oscillations in an ellipsometric system

Abstract

Ellipsometry is a powerful and well-established optical technique used in the characterisation of materials. It works by combining the components of elliptically polarized light in order to draw information about the optical system. We propose an ellipsometric experimental set up to study polarization interference in the total internal reflection regime for Gaussian laser beams. The relative phase between orthogonal states can be measured as a power oscillation of the optical beam transmitted through a dielectric block and whose orthogonal components are then mixed by a polarizer. We show under which conditions the plane wave analysis is valid and when the power oscillation can be optimized to reproduce a full pattern of oscillation and to simulate quarter and half wave plates.