We demonstrate a new approach to determine the dielectric tensor of anisotropic materials using a rotating polarizer (or analyzer) ellipsometer. The dependence of the ellipsometric parameters as a function of azimuthal angle shows characteristic patterns very sensitive to the magnitude of the dielectric tensor and its orientation with respect to the sample surface. These patterns are in general nonsinusoidal and depend strongly on the angle setting of the fixed analyzer (or polarizer). We illustrate the method with results obtained on a generic crystallographic face of a uniaxial material, namely, a single crystal of the electron‐doped high‐temperature superconductor Nd1.85Ce0.15CuO4−&dgr; . ©1995 American Institute of Physics.