Fast and accurate line scanner based on white light interferometry

Abstract

White-light interferometry is a highly accurate technology for 3D measurements. The principle is widely utilized in surface metrology instruments but rarely adopted for in-line inspection systems. The main challenges for rolling out inspection systems based on white-light interferometry to the production floor are its sensitivity to environmental vibrations and relatively long measurement times: a large quantity of data needs to be acquired and processed in order to obtain a single topographic measurement. Heliotis developed a smart-pixel CMOS camera (lock-in camera) which is specially suited for white-light interferometry. The demodulation of the interference signal is treated at the level of the pixel which typically reduces the acquisition data by one orders of magnitude. Along with the high bandwidth of the dedicated lock-in camera, vertical scan-speeds of more than 40mm/s are reachable. The high scan speed allows for the realization of inspection systems that are rugged against external vibrations as present on the production floor. For many industrial applications such as the inspection of wafer-bumps, surface of mechanical parts and solar-panel, large areas need to be measured. In this case either the instrument or the sample are displaced laterally and several measurements are stitched together. The cycle time of such a system is mostly limited by the stepping time for multiple lateral displacements. A line-scanner based on white light interferometry would eliminate most of the stepping time while maintaining robustness and accuracy. A. Olszak proposed a simple geometry to realize such a lateral scanning interferometer. We demonstrate that such inclined interferometers can benefit significantly from the fast in-pixel demodulation capabilities of the lock-in camera. One drawback of an inclined observation perspective is that its application is limited to objects with scattering surfaces. We therefore propose an alternate geometry where the incident light is normal to the object surface and where an inclined grating is used as reference mirror.