Performing reliable measurements in optical metrology, such as those needed in ellipsometry, requires a calibrated source and detector, or a well-characterized reference sample. We present a novel interferometric technique to perform reliable ellipsometric measurements. This technique relies on the use of a non-classical optical source, namely polarization-entangled twin photons generated by spontaneous parametric downconversion from a nonlinear crystal, in conjunction with a coincidence-detection scheme. Ellipsometric measurements acquired with this scheme are absolute, i.e., they require neither source nor detector calibration, nor do they require a reference.
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0202088,
title = {Entangled-photon ellipsometry},
author = {Ayman F. Abouraddy and Kimani C. Toussaint, and Alexander V. Sergienko and Bahaa E. A. Saleh and Malvin C. Teich},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0202088},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
23 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in J. Opt. Soc. Am. B