Ion beam sputtering fabrications of Mo/Si multilayers for soft X-ray mirrors were studied using an automatic null ellipsometer. The ellipsometric growth curves plotted on the complex plane showed island structure formation for every Mo layer grown on Si when deposition was performed with a 1400 V Ar ion beam. The ellipsometric growth curves indicated that the multilayers fabricated with 900 V ions had sharper and smoother interfaces compared to those fabricated with 1400 V ions. Quantitative layer-by-layer analysis showed that the Si layers deposited at 1400 V became optically isotropic as thin as 1 nm. These data depict the usefulness of our in-situ ellipsometer in controlling layer thickness and also optimizing the deposition condition to form homogeneous and optically isotropic layer structures. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.