Real-time in situ spectroscopic ellipsometry of GaSb nanostructures during sputtering

We demonstrate that real-time in situ spectroscopic ellipsometry can be used to measure the height evolution of nanostructures during low energy ion sputtering of GaSb. A graded anisotropic effective medium approximation is used to extract the height from the optical measurements. Two different growth regimes have been observed, first exponential then followed by a linear regime. The linear regime is not expected from the traditional sputtering theories. The in situ results correspond well to ex situ atomic force microscopy measurements.