Spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) has proven to be a very powerful diagnostic for thin film characterisation. It was used to determine thin film parameters such as film thickness and optical functions of polycrystalline tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) films deposited by spray pyrolysis onto Pyrex substrates. Dielectric ITO films often present microstructures which give rise to a variation of the refractive index with the distance from substrate. In this work, it was found that the fit between ellipsometric data and optical models results could be significantly improved when it was assumed that the refractive index of ITO films varied across the upper 60 nm near the film surface. Also, the surface roughness was modelled and compared with that given by the atomic force microscope (A.FM). (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.