Improved fast white-light scanning profilometer

摘要

White-light Vertical Scanning Interferometry (VSI) is a well-established technique for retrieving the three-dimensional shape of small objects. It has the advantage of non-contact measurement with absolute depth resolution at nanometer level repeatability. The technique has proven to be very effective in measurements of microstructures such as MEMS devices, surface texture, rouhness, etc. However, it can only measure areas as big as the field of view of the instrument, usually not more than 15 mm, or a stitching algorithm must be applied. This slows down the measurements and often can be a source of errors. In this paper we present a modifications of the technique permitting measurements at higher speeds while retaining the overall accuracy and repeatability of VSI. In the presented method the object is scanned laterally in front of an instrument with a tilted coherence plane such that the data is acquired continuously elimianting the need for stitching for elongated objects. One of the advantages of the proposed system is possibility of faster scanning speed with the use of a high speed CCD arrays. In the paper we present the principle of the method along with an experimental confirmation.