Determination of optical constants of polymeric thin films by integrated optical techniques

Abstract

Refractive indices, including anisotropy and absorptive and scattering losses, and film thickness can simultaneously quickly and accurately be determined by integrated optical techniques. Although others have already proposed this application and given a few illustrations, we wish to report our experimental and computational procedures for anisotropic films, a common occurence with polymeric films produced from solution. Films have been studied both as single layers (1- μm thick) or as thin second layers (<1 μm) on guiding films of glass. Our detailed study of polymeric films will be published elsewhere but we do illustrate the method with a polyvinyl alcohol film. © 1976.