Mueller polarimetry of discontinuous gold films

Abstract

The problem of controlling morphology of discontinuous gold films by the method of optical angular Mueller-polarimetry is considered. A set of the samples of such films with different amounts of sputtered metal has been fabricated and studied. The reference structure control was carried out by atomic force microscopy and measurement of the film resistivity. In this paper, only 4 elements of the upper left minor of the Mueller matrix are discussed. It is shown that clear correlation between these elements and the amount of sputtered metal take place. The two diagonal elements increase with the growth of the metal layer, while the other two demonstrate non-monotonic behavior. The dependences on the angle of light incidence for the diagonal elements are monotonic, and for the non-diagonal ones are opposite. The obtained results may be explained by the features of light scattering in the vicinity of the percolation threshold of an island gold film.

Keywords

• polarimetry
• mueller matrix
• atomic force microscopy
• sensor