Photometric ellipsometer for measuring partially polarized light

If a compensator rotating at exactly one-third the rate of the analyzer is added to a rotating-analyzer ellipsometer (RAE), all four Stokes parameters of a general polarization state can be measured by Fourier analyzing the transmitted flux. This rotating-analyzer/compensator ellipsometer (RACE) retains the high sensitivity of photometric systems while eliminating the measurement ambiguities characteristic of other photometric ellipsometers. It is self-calibrating and, like null systems, its precision does not depend upon the state measured.