Gary is a founding member of the newly formed Garston Community United group, which was set up to fight for a part of the city that many around here feel has been totally forgotten about.

The modular design of J. A. Woollam ellipsometers facilitates the delivery of these novel configurations, and its collaboration with companies such as Linkam allows thin film researchers to test their materials in new ways. Linkam’s HFSEL600 temperature control stage is based on our standard ellipsometry stage, the THSMEL600. The HFSEL600 allows temperature-dependent ellipsometry measurements with all J. A. Woollam systems, such as the M-2000, RC2 and IR-VASE instruments. The heating stage is a self-contained system with optical windows for ellipsometry measurements at an angle of incidence of 70°. It may also be operated as an open system with other angles of incidence. Jeremy comments on the integration of these systems: Garston residents Patricial Putterill and Edna Dillon have both been sat listening intently throughout the meeting at the Woodcutters, with their sense of indignation rising with as each speaker lays out just how badly they feel this community has been treated.The AutoRetarder is a computer controlled MgF 2 Berek waveplate (compensator) used to accurately introduce retardance into the beam path. Because the compensator is under computer control, it is possible to generate appropriate retardance values (0 – 90°) over a broad (140 – 2500 nm) spectral range. The retardance is automatically adjusted to give the highest measurement accuracy for any sample. J.A. Woollam within a user-friendly interface. Real-time ellipsometry data contains a wealth of information. Samples can be fully characterized before, during, Features…you may want to consider the different needs for you application and whether the ellipsometer can be upgraded at a later time to meet future needs. Typical accessories include sample translation for uniformity mapping, liquid cells, temperature stages, focused spot, and even wavelength range expansions.

With SE systems that feature a broad spectral coverage, you get the simultaneous benefits from all wavelengths. This is why the trend with SE systems is to offer more wavelengths over a wider spectral range. The course was not only thorough and helpful but fun and engaging. I truly feel that my time and money was well spent and that I had advanced my knowledge of ellipsometry significantly. The venue of Nottingham Trent University was a good location and provided a good service and the people from Quantum Design UK & Ireland were also very helpful and friendly and did a great job of organising the course and events. In addition to this, the course included a dinner which allowed for course members and organisers to meet and network, which was fantastic and good connections were made! The Mueller-matrix completely specifies the interaction of light from a specular sample. Unlike the Jones-matrix, which can only represent polarized light, the Mueller-matrix can describe polarized, partially-polarized and even unpolarized light. The Mueller-matrix is a 4X4 matrix that describes the reflection or transmission of light, where incoming and outgoing light beams are described by their 4-element Stokes vectors. Global fitting is a feature used to search a defined parameter space for a global minimum. This approach is helpful to avoid local minima that might prevent the correct fit from being obtained. A standard global fit will scan two or more parameters as a grid. Each point gets assigned an MSE value, and the minimum MSE value along with its corresponding parameters is reported at the end. Local residents are increasingly concerned about what more industrial plans will mean for their community (Image: Liverpool Echo)

Dr. Nina Hong

I'm here for my children and grandchildren," explains Edna. "It's their future I'm worried about, that's why we need to do something." The 3-day course went on to bolster this, with plenty of examples for us to try for ourselves, which was key to gaining a better understanding of the fitting methods available to use in CompleteEASE. The methods of fitting, namely when to use a Cauchy layer, a B-spline and a Gen Osc model etc. were explained in detail, again with practical examples, as practice makes perfectseems a very apt statement for determining how best to fit different data. CompleteEASE also features a randomized global fit algorithm, which will search the parameter space randomly instead of in a grid. The advantage of this method is that an MSE threshold can be set. Once a point below the MSE threshold has been found, the fit is then followed by a standard Levenberg- Marquardt fit. Tests have shown a reduction in global fit time of 5x or better using this feature. Alternate Models