Development of microscopic surface profile estimation algorithm through reflected laser beam analysis

In order to measure surface roughness profile, stylus type equipments are commonly used, but the stylus keeps contact with surface and damages specimens by its tip pressure. Therefore, optics based measurement systems are developed, and light phase interferometer, which is based on light interference phenomenon, is the most noticeable research. However, light interference based measurements require translation mechanisms of nano-meter order in order to generate phase differences or multiple focusing, thus the systems cannot satisfy the industrial need of on-the-machine and in-process measurement to achieve factory automation and productive enhancement. In this research, we focused light reflectance phenomenon rather than the light interference, because reflectance based method do not need translation mechanisms. However, the method cannot direct]y measure surface roughness profile, because reflected light consists of several components and thus it cannot supply surface height information with its original form. In order to overcome the demerit, we newly proposed an image processing based algorithm, which can separate reflected light components and conduct parameterization and reconstruction process with respect to surface height information, and then confirmed the reliability of proposed algorithm by experiment.

레이저 반사광 분석을 통한 미세 표면 프로파일 추정 알고리즘의 개발