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°, 180°, and 270° 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.