Abstract
A heterodyne interference microscope arrangement for full-field imaging is described. The reference and object beams are formed with highly correlated, time-varying laser speckle patterns. The speckle illumination confers a confocal transfer function to the system, and by temporal averaging, the coherence noise that often degrades coherent full-field microscope images is suppressed. The microscope described is similar to a Linnik-type microscope and allows the use of high-numerical-aperture objective lenses, but the temporal coherence of the illumination permits the use of a low-power achromatic doublet in the reference arm. The use of a doublet simplifies alignment of the microscope and can reduce the cost. Preliminary results are presented that demonstrate full-field surface height precision of 1 nm rms.
© 2004 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
B. Karamata, P. Lambelet, M. Laubscher, R. P. Salathé, and T. Lasser
Opt. Lett. 29(7) 736-738 (2004)
Colin J. R. Sheppard, Maitreyee Roy, and Manjula D. Sharma
Appl. Opt. 43(7) 1493-1502 (2004)
Guoqiang Li, Pang-Chen Sun, Paul C. Lin, and Yeshayahu Fainman
Opt. Lett. 25(20) 1505-1507 (2000)