Interferometric comparison of the performance of a CMOS and sCMOS detector

Abstract

We present an analysis of the imaging performance of two state-of-the-art sensors widely used in the nondestructive- testing area (NDT). The analysis is based on the quantification of the signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio from an optical phase image. The calculation of the SNR is based on the relation of the median (average) and standard deviation measurements over specific areas of interest in the phase images of both sensors. This retrieved phase is coming from the vibrational behavior of a large object by means of an out-of-plane holographic interferometer. The SNR is used as a figure-of-merit to evaluate and compare the performance of the CMOS and scientific CMOS (sCMOS) camera as part of the experimental set-up. One of the cameras has a high speed CMOS sensor while the other has a high resolution sCMOS sensor. The object under study is a metallically framed table with a Formica cover with an observable area of 1.1 m2. The vibration induced to the sample is performed by a linear step motor with an attached tip in the motion stage. Each camera is used once at the time to record the deformation keeping the same experimental conditions for each case. These measurements may complement the conventional procedures or technical information commonly used to evaluate a camera´s performance such as: quantum efficiency, spatial resolution and others. Results present post processed images from both cameras, but showing a smoother and easy to unwrap optical phase coming from those recorded with the sCMOS camera.