Preventing overfitting in infrared ellipsometry using temperature dependence: fused silica as a case study

Abstract

Fitting oscillator models to variable-angle spectroscopic ellipsometry (VASE) data can lead to non-unique, unphysical results. We demonstrate using temperature-dependent trends to prevent overfitting and ensure model physicality. As a case study, we performed mid-infrared VASE measurements on fused silica (SiO2) of various grades, from room temperature to 600 {\deg}C. We fitted oscillator models independently at each temperature, and confirmed the model's physical validity by observing the expected monotonic trends in vibrational oscillator parameters. Using this technique, we generated a highly accurate dataset for the temperature-dependent complex refractive index of fused silica for modeling mid-infrared optical components such as thermal emitters.