Determination of specular reflectances in a liquid medium with a variable angle of incidence

We present a technique we developed to measure specular reflectances of mirrors immersed in liquids and in air. The method works with a broad range of angles of incidence (θ = 15-75°). The wavelength range used in this research was from 250 to 800 nm, and the state of polarization of the incident rays could be continuously varied with respect to the phase of incidence. The technique used in this study is based on a low-cost variable-angle reflectometer and a commercial spectrophotometer. Here we discuss the protocol we devised to extract reflectances with this instrument. This procedure was tested with samples that were measured through the use of ellipsometric techniques. The main advantages of the method discussed here are versatility, speed, and the availability of the equipment used; these are particularly useful for controlling the quality of a large number of samples. We present the results of reflectance measurements in water for dielectric coated aluminum intended for use in light concentrators for the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. The error in our estimate of the overall reflectance, weighted over operational distributions of wavelength and incident angle, is ±3% for one sample and ±5% for the 2000 m(2) of coated material involved in this observatory.