Nanostep height measurement via spatial mode projection

We demonstrate an optical scheme for measuring the thickness of thin nanolayers with the use of light beam’s spatial modes. The novelty in our scheme is the projection of the beam reflected by the sample onto a properly tailored spatial mode. In the experiment described below, we are able to measure a step height smaller than 10 nm, i.e., one...

Correcting movement errors in frequency-sweeping interferometry

Absolute distance measurements can be performed with an interferometric method that uses only a single tunable laser. This method has one major drawback, because a small target movement of the order of one wavelength during a measurement will be interpreted as a movement of one synthetic wavelength. This effect is usually mitigated by adding a...