During metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) growth of layers of CdS/CdTe, two different sets of data has been extracted in situ at normal incidence, with only a narrow optical access to the sample. using a charge coupled device (CCD) array as the detector. When growing CdTe on Si (001) in a 2" single water reactor. the growth rate was determined through reflectance interferometry, and film roughness through scattering Measurements. A dual wavelength method has been used. where the wavelengths have been chosen to match the CCD detector elements for green and red light in an Agilent HDCS1000 CCD-array. The second wavelength has beet) used to correct for the absorption scattering extinction problem of single wavelength interferometry, The relative high intensity or the laser light relative to the ambient minimised the need for filtering of ambient light. The result has been a very simple and robust instrument. The blue light pixels were used for ambient light correction, but Could be used for blue laser light detection. The interferograms have been recorded by simple integration of the imaging data sets. The growth rate for both wavelengths was 0.83 nm/s. Through creating a diffused laser spot on a surface. and correlating this to the initial state, roughness data were also accessible. Roughness could be determined quantitatively through correlating scattering data from the interferograms with AFM micrographs of the samples, (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.