In this work, we present the dielectric function of hexagonal 4H- and 6H-SiC polytypes as well as the cubic 3C-SiC polytype in the energy range from 3.5 to 10 eV measured by spectroscopic ellipsometry. We operated with synchrotron radiation at the Berlin electron storage ring BESSY I. Additionally the samples were investigated by atomic force microscopy to correct the measured dielectric function for the influence of surface roughness. The experimental results are compared to theoretical calculations.