Thickness measurement and optical characterization of dielectric thin-films using surface plasmon resonance

In this thesis we present a method to determine the thickness of dielectric thin films (<100 nm). The thickness of four magnesium-fluoride (MgF2) thin films of different thicknesses is accurately determined by detecting the angle at which surface plasmon resonance (SPR) occurs. The experiment consists of the measurement of the attenuated total internal reflection using an optical setup based on the Kretschmann configuration. Curves from a theoretical model for multilayer thin film resonance are used to fit the experimental results in order to obtain the dielectric film thickness. Additionally, we calculated numerically the dispersion relation for an insulator-insulator-metal-insulator (IIMI) structure and determined the experimental range of parameters where the system is the most sensitive.