3-D surface profilometry using simultaneous phase-shifting interferometry

Urgent needs for high-speed, non-contact and on-line measurement with high accuracy and repeatability are of great interest for automatic optical inspection (AOI) industries. Therefore, optical phase-shifting interferometry for precision 3-D surface profilometry has become an important metrological method due to its non-contact and high measurement accuracy. Traditional phase-shifting interferometry is very sensitive to vibrations because image acquisition in various phase-shifting sequences could easily introduce measurement errors from environmental influences, such as air disturbance and system structure vibrations. In this paper, we introduce a new simultaneous phase-shifting interferometer for 3-D surface profilometry which employs a single glass plate to generate simultaneous phase-shifted interferograms. Phase reconstruction is performed by using a developed phase-shifting algorithm which uses a three-step phase-shifting method with phase differences of 90 degrees, 180 degrees, and 270 degrees for three interferograms. To verify measurement accuracy and repeatability, the system was employed to measure surface profiles of surface of a flat mirror and set of Mitutoyo gauge blocks. The experiment result shows that the method is proven to be capable of performing one-shot interferometric measurement and minimizing influences from environmental disturbances with measurement repeatability down to 10 nm or less. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.