Accurate Roughness Measurement Using a Method for Evaluation and Interpolation of the Validity of Height Data from a Scanning White-light Interferometer

An effective and precise method using a scanning white-light interferometer (SWLI) for three-dimensional surface measurements, in particular for roughness measurements, has been proposed. The measurement of a microscopically sloped area using an interferometer has limitations, due to the numerical aperture of the lens. In particular, for roughness measurements, it is challenging to obtain accurate height data for a sloped area using the interferometer, due to diffraction of the light. Owing to these optical limitations of the interferometer for roughness measurements, the Ra measurements performed using an interferometer contain errors. To overcome the limitations, we propose a method consisting of the following two steps. First, we evaluate the height data and set the invalid height area to be blank, using the characteristics of the modulus peak, which has a low peak value for signals that have low reliability in the interferogram. Next, we interpolate the blank area using the adjacent reliable area. Rubert roughness standards are used to verify the proposed method. The results obtained by the proposed method are compared to those obtained with a stylus profilometer. For the considered sinusoidal samples, Ra ranges from $0.053{\mu}m$ to $6.303{\mu}m$, and we show that the interpolation method is effective. In addition, the method can be applied to a random surface where Ra ranges from $0.011{\mu}m$ to $0.164{\mu}m$. We show that the roughness results obtained using the proposed method agree well with profilometer results. The $R^2$ values for both sinusoidal and random samples are greater than 0.995.