Institute of Solid State Physics


SS22WS22SS23WS23SS24WS24      Guidelines for Master Students

Ellipsometric porosimetry set-up and study of thin films in the nanometer regime
Clarissa Holzer
11:15 - 12:15 Wednesday 22 April 2020  PH 01 150

Link to the talk



Ellipsometric Porosimetry (EP) is a rather recently developed technique, used to characterise porous thin films concerning their porosity and pore size distribution. EP allows evaluating most of the features of thin films with pore diameters in the sub-nanometer regime. This is done by measuring the change in film thickness and of optical properties (e.g. the refractive index) using an ellipsometer throughout an adsorption and desorption cycle of a gaseous species within the pores.

Film porosity gains more and more importance in material science and has become a key element in
many technology branches, e.g. to improve the switching speed in microelectronic devices, as barrier layers for OLED or as components of selective gas- and biosensors.

The scope of this work is divided into three parts – the setup of the vacuum system including the
experimental chamber, test evaluations of porous thin films and developing a software to automate, and therefore speed up, the measurement and postprocessing process. It is intended to determine the porosity of zinc oxide films created via Molecular Layer Deposition (MLD).