Highly Specialized Optical Metrology

Highly sensitive frequency metrology for optical anisotropy measurements.

In this paper we present a novel apparatus aimed at measuring very small birefringences and anisotropies and based on frequency metrology and not on polarimetry as usual. In our experiment, a very high finesse resonant cavity is used to convert the phase difference into a resonance frequency difference, which can then be measured with very high accuracy. We describe the setup and present the re...

Optical Metrology Third Edition

Optical Metrology of Thin Films

A non-contact and non-destructive laser-based acoustic technique called impulsive stimulated thermal scattering (ISTS) is demonstrated for new applications in the context of a compact, portable apparatus. ISTS is used to determine viscoelastic and thermal transport properties of a DuPont Kapton film before and after neutron irradiation to determine the changes that would be expected to occur in...

Optical Metrology under Extreme Conditions

Optical metrology provides full field, noncontact, precise measurement of various physical parameters of materials, structures, and devices. These properties include kinematic parameters (displacement, velocity, and acceleration), deformation parameters (strains, curvature, and twist), surface parameters (shape and roughness), and mechanical properties of materials (Young’s modulus, Poisson’s r...

Reliable optical pump architecture for highly coherent lasers used in space metrology applications

Laser-based metrology has been identified as an enabling technology in the deployment of large, space-borne observatories, where nanometer-level knowledge of fiducial displacement drives overall system performance. In particular, Nd:YAG NPRO (non-planar ring oscillator) based lasers have received considerable attention in this application because of their inherent high coherence at wavelengths ...