Etalon-induced baseline drift and correction in atom flux sensors based on atomic absorption spectroscopy

Atom flux sensors based on atomic absorption (AA) spectroscopy are of significant interest in thin film growth as they can provide unobtrusive, element specific real-time flux sensing and control. The ultimate sensitivity and performance of these sensors are strongly affected by baseline drift. Here we demonstrate that an etalon effect resulting from temperature changes in optical viewport housings is a major source of signal instability, which has not been previously considered, and cannot be corrected using existing methods. We show that small temperature variations in the fused silica viewports can introduce intensity modulations of up to 1.5% which in turn significantly deteriorate AA sensor performance. This undesirable effect can be at least partially eliminated by reducing the size of the beam and tilting the incident light beam off the viewport normal. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.