title: Thickness and refractive index measurements using multiple beam interference fringes (FECO).
abstract: We report on the use of optical interferometry employing fringes of equal chromatic order (FECO) in a surface force apparatus (SFA) to determine film thicknesses and refractive indices of confined media for a wide range of separations. In particular, we show how to calculate the surface separation (film thickness) based on two fringes whose contact position was not measured. We discuss the measurement accuracy, and though the theoretical accuracy is 1 A for all separations, we show that in practice, for large separations, it is very hard to get to this accuracy.
authors.affiliation: Materials Research Laboratory and Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Rafael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tadmor
authors.forename: Nianhuan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Jacob N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Israelachvili