The THMS600 is one of the most widely used heating and freezing stages on the market, has now been modified with a special optical adapter to facilitate use on an ellipsometer. Developed in collaboration with the world leading ellipsometer manufacturers, the stage has been optimised to eliminate sample condensation at low temperature by vacuum and allow optimal optical access to the sample.

Samples loaded onto a 0.17mm cover slip are placed on a highly polished pure silver heating element to ensure excellent heat transfer and extremely sensitive temperature measurement. A platinum resistor sensor, accurate to 0.01°C provides far more accurate and stable temperature signal that can be achieved with a thermocouple.

Samples can be quickly characterized by heating to within a few degrees of the required temperature at a rate of up to 150°C/min with no overshoot, then slowed down to a few tenths of a degrees per minute to closely examine sample changes. The entire experiment can be saved as an online plot or exported to a spreadsheet application.