Cylindrical Lenses Based Spectral Domain Low-Coherence Interferometry for On-line Surface Inspection

This paper presents a spectral domain low-coherence interferometry (SD-LCI) method that is effective for applications in on-line surface inspection because it can obtain a surface profile in a single shot. It has an advantage over existing spectral interferometry techniques because it uses cylindrical lenses as the objective lens in a Michelson interferometric configuration to enable the measurement of long profiles. The adjustable profile length in our experimental setup, determined by the NA of the illuminating system and the aperture of cylindrical lenses, is up to 10 mm. To simulate real-time surface inspection, large-scale 3D surface measurement was carried out by translating the tested sample during the measurement procedure. Two step height surfaces were measured and the captured interferograms were analysed using a fast Fourier transform algorithm. Both 2D profile results and 3D surface maps closely align with the calibrated specifications given by the manufacturer.