The technique of Spectroscopic Ellipsometry (SE) has been examined with emphasis on its inherent sensitivity to the existence of thin films or surface equivalents. A brief review of related theories like the Fresnel reflection coefficients, the effect of a multilayer upon reflectivities, together with the validity of the effective medium theory and the modelling procedure, is followed by a short description of the experimental setup of a rotating polarizer type SE as well as the necessful expressions which lead to tan and cos. Out of its numerous, successful applications, a few are exampled to convince a reader that SE can be applied to a variety of research fields related to surface, interface and thin films. Specifically, those are adsorption and/or desorption on metals or semiconductors, oxidation process, formation of passivation layers on an electrode, thickness determination, interface between semiconductor and its oxide, semiconductor heterojunctions, surface microroughness, void distribution of dielectric, optical thin films, depth profile of multilayered samples, in-situ or in-vitro characterization of a solid surface immersed in electrolyte during electrochemical, chemical, or biological treatments, and so on. It is expected that the potential capability of SE will be widely utilized in a very near future, taking advantage of its sensitivity to thin films or surface equivalents, and its nondestructive, nonperturbing characteristics.