Ocean Optics ElliCalc - Manual (Page 10)

Ocean Optics Germany GmbH Thin Film Metrology
9
5 User modes of ElliCalc
ElliCalc has two different user modes, the
“SCOUT-mode” and the “ElliCalc internal mode” . At the moment
the “SCOUT-mode” is the normal mode, the “internal mode” can only extract thicknesses and Cauchy
dispersion
The “SCOUT-mode” requires that another software, called “SCOUT” is installed on this PC, the “internal
mode” only uses ElliCalc.
5.1 SCOUT mode
ElliCalc works as a graphical user interface for a sophisticated film software “SCOUT” working in the
background.
The whole process is necessarily driven by recipes.
• within ElliCalc you have to load a “recipe” , e.g. “SiO2 on Si.lrc”. This ASCII-readable recipe
contains a link to a SCOUT recipe like “SiO2 on Si.sc2”. All necessary layer informations are
contained in this SCOUT recipe and are read by ElliCalc, but only for display purposes.
• ElliCalc now controls the hardware, measures the sample and sends the measured Psi/Delta-values
to SCOUT (via a file EC_Data.xy in directory “ElliCalc\Internal_Files”).
• SCOUT does the calculation of all parameters
• the results are given back to ElliCalc via OLE-connection. The main fit parameters (thickness,
refraction, absorption, roughness and EMA-fractions) are displayed by ElliCalc, as well as all other
SCOUT fit parameters.
This SCOUT mode relies totally on good SCOUT recipes. So there must be someone (you or the
administrator or OceanOptics) in the background being familiar with the details and the physics of SCOUT.
The advantage is a “one-button-ellipsometry” for the user and an enormous calculation power !
5.2 Internal mode
In this internal mode the user can create own layer stacks and does not need the external SCOUT software
at all. There is no need to work with recipes, but is is recommended. BUT: At the moment only thickness
values and a Cauchy dispersion can be extracted.
ElliCalc:
measure spectrum
display results
SpecEl
ellipsometer
SCOUT
calculation
SCOUT sc2-recipe ElliCalc lrc--recipe
ElliCalc:
define layer stack
measure spectrum
calculate thickness
display thickness
ElliCalc lrc-recipe
SpecEl
ellipsometer