In this investigation, we propose a simple and effective lateral shearing interferometer based on a polarization grating. In the lateral shearing device, an incident beam is split into two beams by a polarization grating, and the returning beams can be laterally shifted after reflecting off a flat mirror and passing through the polarization grating again. These two beams are not only laterally shifted, but also their polarization states are orthogonal to each other as circular polarizations. With a single image obtained by a pixelated polarization CMOS camera, the proposed LSI can obtain the phase map corresponding to the x-sheared interferogram, and the other phase map can be calculated from another single image obtained by 90° rotation of the shearing device. Then, the original wavefront corresponding to the surface figure of the specimen can be reconstructed by wavefront reconstruction algorithms. In the experiments, various wavefronts generated by concave mirrors and a deformable mirror were measured and compared with those of a commercial Shack-Hartmann sensor.

Spectrally resolved interferometry (SRI) is an attractive technique to measure absolute distances without any moving components. In the spectral interferogram obtained by a spectrometer, the optical path difference (OPD) can simply be extracted from the linear slope of the spectral phase. However, SRI has a fundamental measuring range limitation due to maximum and minimum measurable distances. In addition, SRI cannot distinguish the OPD direction because the spectral interferogram is in the form of a natural sinusoidal function. In this investigation, we describe a direction determining SRI and propose the optimal conditions for determining OPD direction. Spectral phase nonlinearity, caused by a dispersive material, effects OPD direction but deteriorates spectral interferogram visibility. In the experiment, various phase nonlinearities were measured by adjusting the dispersive material (BK7) thickness. We observed the interferogram visibility and the possibility of direction determination. Based on the experimental results, the optimal dispersion conditions are provided to distinguish OPD directions of SRI.

In this investigation, we describe a metrological technique for surface and thickness profiles of a silicon (Si) wafer by using a 6 degree of freedom (DOF) stitching method. Low coherence scanning interferometry employing near infrared light, partially transparent to a Si wafer, is adopted to simultaneously measure the surface and thickness profiles of the wafer. For the large field of view, a stitching method of the sub-aperture measurement is added to the measurement system; also, 6 DOF parameters, including the lateral positioning errors and the rotational error, are considered. In the experiment, surface profiles of a double-sided polished wafer with a 100 mm diameter were measured with the sub-aperture of an 18 mm diameter at 10x10 locations and the surface profiles of both sides were stitched with the sub-aperture maps. As a result, the nominal thickness of the wafer was 483.2 μm and the calculated PV values of both surfaces were 16.57 μm and 17.12μm, respectively.