Measurement of liquid crystal film thickness using interferometry

Abstract

Thickness measurements of thin films having thickness less than 1 µm are difficult to obtain by an interferometer. These difficulties arise from the overlap of the fringes from the upper and lower surfaces of the thin films. This paper presents a new methodology that mediates the consequences of this overlap and then implements it with thickness measurements of liquid crystal (LC) thin films. It takes into consideration the properties of light propagation within these films in order to rectify the images obtained from the interferometer. It assumes that the lower fringe pattern is much stronger that the upper one and hence the latter may be ignored. This occurs in situations where thin films are coated on substrates of significantly higher reflectivity, as happens when an LC thin film is coated on a polished iron substrate. The thickness and topography of LC thin films were experimentally measured with this methodology and were compared with measurements taken by an atomic force microscope. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd.