Elastic Scattering Phenomena in Thin Polymer Layers

Thin polymer films are currently under intensive investigation owing to their promising optical and electrical properties. The roughness and refractive index variation in a film, and also presence of unwanted molecular inclusions in bulk created during film formation may lead to incoherent light scattering. Therefore the analysis of thin film optical spectra becomes more complicated. The aim of this work is presentation of light scattering phenomena occurring in a polymer layer. The phenomena can be described by the Fresnel model for specular reflectance and also Rayleigh, Debye and scalar theories of light scattering for non-directional reflection from a diffusive film. Furthermore, the optical methods based on combined spectro-goniometric measurements have been presented. These investigations allow determining many important parameters such as optical constants, films thickness and their surface roughness and also optical scattering coefficients of diffusive layers.