An original method to determine complex refractive index of liquids by spectroscopic ellipsometry and illustrated applications

摘要

Highlights • A new method allows to characterize optical properties of liquids with spectroscopic ellipsometer. • It has been successfully validated over 190–2100nm on a Phase Modulation Ellipsometer. • It is illustrated on water, organic liquids and protein solution. Abstract We present a method to characterize optical properties of liquids by spectroscopic ellipsometry. The experiments use a specific liquid cell that avoids disturbance of waves at air-liquid interface and allows the determination of the real and the imaginary part of the refractive index, with a sensitivity of the latter below 10−4. The method is illustrated by results obtained with a spectroscopic phase modulation ellipsometer on several liquids such as deionised water, microscope oil and protein solution. Comparisons of the method with standard techniques are given.