Microscopic scattering imaging measurement and digital evaluation system of defects for fine optical surface

According to ISO 10110-7 and the engineering standards of Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF), this paper presents a microscopic seattering, imaging and analyzing system which allows one to automatically evaluate defects in random distributions and shapes on the surface of fine optical components of large aperture. The annularly disposed multi-beam fiber light sources illuminate the target surface with a special angle. The image, which has bright defects on black background, is suitable for digital image processing. With XY-scanning system, the defect information of full aperture can be obtained by stitching the sub-aperture image array, according to the algorithms of template matching. The full aperture image is divided into N x N sub-apertures, each of which has view field of approximate 3 mm x 4 mm. Image processing software for image recognition has been established using mathematical morphology with high computing, efficiency and friendly graphics user interface. A group of standard reticules fabricated by binary optics can scale defects for calibration. As a result the lateral resolution of the system is better than sub-micrometer while the total view field can be hundreds of millimeters. The comparison quantitative data results between the experiment and standard demonstrate the system is competent for the diaital evaluation of defect characterization of fine optical surfaces, especially for the ones with large aperture. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.