COMPOSANT OPTIQUE DE MODULATION, POLARIMETRE ET ELLIPSOMETRE DE MUELLER COMPRENANT UN TEL COMPOSANT OPTIQUE, PROCEDE DE CALIBRAGE DE CET ELLIPSOMETRE ET PROCEDE DE MESURE ELLIPSOMETRIQUE

摘要

The invention concerns an optical component of polarizing modulation, a polarimeter and a Mueller ellipsometer comprising this optical component. The optical component modulates an incident light beam (10) linearly polarized and sends back a modulated beam (11). It comprises a coupled phase modulator (6B) modulating twice successively the incident beam, the two modulations being at the same frequency omega /2 pi and being coupled by a system (61) modifying the state of polarization of the light between the two modulations. The ellipsometer comprises means for sensing a measuring beam sent back by a sample, which receives the modulated beam, and a processing unit. The sensing means include a polarimeter generating n measured quantities representing the states of polarization of the beam and the processing unit generates by Fourier transform m values for each of these quantities, with n x m >/= 16 and m >/= 4, for simultaneously acceding to the sixteen coefficients of the Mueller matrix of the sample.