Spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) is a powerful tool to characterize multilayered thinfilms, providing structural parameters and materials optical properties over a wide
spectral range. Further analyses of these optical properties can provide additional
information of interest on the physical and chemical properties of materials. In situ real
time SE (RTSE) combines high surface sensitivity with fast data acquisition and
non-destructive probing, thus lends unique insights into the dynamics of film growth.
In this thesis, the methods of SE have been applied to investigate the growth and
properties of material components used in the major thin film photovoltaic technologies,
including cadmium telluride (CdTe), hydrogenated silicon (Si:H), and copper
indium-gallium diselenide (CIGS). The magnetron sputtering of polycrystalline CdTe,
CdS, and CdTe1-xSx thin films has been studied by RTSE. The growth rate, nucleation
behavior, evolution of surface roughness, and development of void structures in CdTe and
CdS show strong variations with deposition temperature and Ar pressure. The complex
dielectric functions ε of CdTe and CdS films also sensitively depend on preparation
conditions. In-depth analyses of ε provide consistent estimates of temperature, excited
carrier mean free path, group speeds of excited carriers, and intrinsic stress in the films.
Thus, SE has the potential to monitor not only film thickness, but also materials
properties on a solar cell production line. Major SE analyses results are compared with
other characterization techniques, including atomic force microscopy and X-ray
diffraction. RTSE has been applied to establish deposition phase diagrams that describe
very high frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor depositions for Si:H thin films on
various substrates. Close correlations between RTSE results and solar cell performance
have been observed. Finally, ex situ SE has provided ε for a novel In2S3 window layer
used in CIGS technology which can then be applied in quantum efficiency simulations.
Significant generalizations from previous studies have been achieved for the study
of a dual rotating compensator ellipsometer system. Computer software was developed to
verify the generalized approach, to simulate the operations of such a system under
non-ideal conditions, and to predict the best hardware design, experimental configuration,
and data reduction strategies.