Ellipsometry/Brewster Angle Microscopy
 
An Ellipsometry experiment in progress
 
Ellipsometery is a reflectance-based polarimetric technique that is widely used for measuring the thickness of a thin (nanoscale) films at an interface. In Ellipsometry, plane polarised light is reflected from a film-covered surface at an angle near the Brewster angle. The resultant reflected beam is elliptically polarised and the degree of ellipticity is dependent on the refractive index and thickness of the thin film. We use ellipsometry for routine characterisation of, for example, cast polymer films or adsorbed species such as proteins, polymers and surfactants.
Imaging Ellipsometry is an extension of Ellipsometry that is able to determine film thickness over a defined area and so give a quantitative measure of variations in film thickness and composition.
 
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Grey-scale ellipsometric image of a deformable fluid droplet
 
A form of Imaging Ellipsometry is Brewster Angle Microscopy (BAM). BAM  gives high resolution grey-scale images of a film-covered surface providing useful topographic information.
We use Imaging Ellipsometry to study the relationship between the hydrodynamics of film drainage at deformable interfaces, surface deformation and surface forces.  BAM is used for obtaining high resolution images of heterogeneous surfaces such as spreading films and supported bilayers.
Brewster Angle Microscopy image of dendritic spreading of a thin liquid film
 
Contact Michelle Gee School of Chemistry University of Melbourne, VIC 3010 Australia mlgee@unimelb.edu.au Michelle%20Gee.htmlmailto:mlgee@unimelb.edu.aushapeimage_35_link_0shapeimage_35_link_1
Soft Condensed Matter Laboratories School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne, Australia