Abstract:
A dual beam interferometer device is disclosed that enables moving an optics module in a direction, which changes the path lengths of two beams of light. The two beams reflect off a surface of an object and generate different speckle patterns detected by an element, such as a camera. The camera detects a characteristic of the surface.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application claims benefit of U.S. Provisional application No. 60/141,586, filed Jun. 29, 1999. 
    
    
     STATEMENT AS TO FEDERALLY-SPONSORED RESEARCH 
     The invention described herein was made in the performance of work under a NASA contract, and is subject to the provisions of Public Law 96-517 (U.S.C. 202) in which the contractor has elected to retain title. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND 
     Common interferometer designs use a beam to measure characteristics of a surface that is being imaged. 
     U.S. Pat. No. 5,671,050 suggested using two different beams to measure information from the object. The two beams are reflected at different angles to the surface, and the distance to the object surface can be scanned. 
     In addition to the patent described above, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,958,884, 5,502,562, and 5,011,280 teach interferometry techniques. 
     SUMMARY 
     The present application teaches a dual beam interferometer with a number of additional advantages. One advantage is reference and signal beams may automatically be of the same magnitude independent of the reflectivity of the object. In one embodiment, two parallel beams are reflected from an object, and the spacing between the beams may be scanned. Imaging may be done with very small numerical aperatures which allows long working distance and smaller optics. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     These and other aspects will now be described in detail with reference to accompanying drawings wherein: 
     FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of the present system; 
     FIG. 2 shows a more detailed optical diagram of the present system; and 
     FIGS. 3A and 3B show how an increase in resolution can be obtained by the present system. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     One problem in interferometry is caused by the diffraction limit of light. The diffraction limit often forms a limit on sizes of features that can be imaged. The present system allows beating this diffraction limit. 
     The present application teaches a system that can be analogized to a speckle interferometer using a variable speckle. The distance between different components in the interferometer can be varied in order to vary the speckle. By changing the distance between the light beams, different “speckle” patterns can be produced. 
     These patterns include information about the surface, at the resolution of the minimum distance between the two beams. 
     The shape of optics may vary with temperature. The present invention overlaps the signal and reference beam paths. This may, at least partially, compensate for the shape change with temperature. In, addition, an interferometer design which has the biggest overlap between signal and reference beams may be desirable to measure variations in the shape of optics with temperature. 
     Since the reference and signal beams travel in nearly the same air space, the distance to the object can be arbitrary. In this way, effects of index variations in the air are reduced. High frequency localized index variations, such as turbulance, may still cause problems. 
     The basic system is shown in the block diagram of FIG. 1. A light source  100  produces spatially incoherent light. The light can be produced, for example, by a light bulb  102 , or alternatively a light emitting diode, or a laser with a moving diffuser. The light is collimated by collimated light beam is input into the beam splitting and combining optics module  110 . This optics module  110  separates the light into two beams which are separated by some distance xy. (x,y) are the coordinates for the separation between the two beams in the plane orthogonal to beam propagation. The vector xy  112  is shown as a control signal which changes the input light  106 . Objective optics  118  may or may not be used depending on the desired numerical aperture. 
     Two beams of light are coupled to the surface  120  to be measured, and reflected back from that surface  120  through to imaging optics  130  to a camera  140 . The camera  140  receives information that indicates some characteristic of the surface  120 . The measurement can include detection of interference fringes between the two beams. The two beams may travel substantially the same distance and impinge the surface, offset from each other by a small distance. 
     Separation of the beams introduces a delta function spatial coherence into the object illumination e.g., white light (spacially incoherent), i.e,. This forms a type of speckle interference pattern on the camera  140 . This pattern can then be measured as the location or distance of the separation between the two beams changes. As the separation between beams changes, the location of the delta function in the spatial coherence and the amount of the spatial coherence also changes. A spatial autocorrelation function then can be used to accurately determine the details of the object&#39;s surface. Because of this, phrase objects can be accurately imaged. Another way to think of the embodiment is as a scanning Speckle interferometer. 
     The optical details of the interferometer is shown in FIG. 2 with the two beams being shown using different kinds of lines. The collimated light source  100  produces output  106  which may be polarized by polarizer  199 . That output light is then coupled to a first beam splitter  200  which may be non-polarizing. The light from beam splitter  200  is output into two separate light beam paths: a first outgoing light beam path  210  shown as evenly dotted lines, and the second outgoing light beam path  220  shown as dot and dashed lines. 
     The first path  210  comes out of the non-polarizing beam splitter  200 , and couples to a right angle prism  230 . The right angle prism  230  reflects the beam to a second beam splitter  240 . The second beam splitter  240  is polarizing. A quarter wave plate  250  is placed at the output of the second beam splitter  240 , to rotate the polarization. The second beam  220  is coupled to a right angle reflector  260  which reflects the beam  220  towards the beam splitter  240 . The beam is coupled into beam splitter  240  at a second location, and impinges on that second location onto the surface  120 . The objective lens  118  may or may not be used depending on the required numerical aperture which determines the difraction limited imaging resolution. The system may further comprise a polarizer  290  and imaging optics  292 . 
     The structure is arranged such that a light beam couples onto the surface  120 , and back out of the surface  120 . Each of the light beams travel along the same path in opposite directions. In this way, substantially the same path length is traveled in both directions. Both beams also pass through all of the optics, thereby equalizing any influence from the optics. 
     Fringes (e.g. white light) are formed on the camera  140  by the interference of the light beams. 
     A movable module is shown by portion  280 . This portion  280  can be moved, to allow the two beam splitters  200 ,  240  and the right angle prism  230  to be moved as a group. This changes the spacing between the two beams without changing the pathlength difference of the beams. The spacing can be changed in the plane of the paper, that is the x direction, or can be changed orthogonal to the plane of the paper, the y direction. A variable beam height adjustment may be added to FIG. 2 to change the spacing in the y direction. The two light paths however, reach the object  120  using similar length paths, and the object  120  is imaged from two sides by the two beams onto the surface of the camera  140 . The reflections from the beam  220  travel the path of the beam  210  on the return trip. Analogously, the reflections from the beam  210  travel the path of the beam  220  on the return trip. While this system describes use of incoherent light, it should be understood that spacially coherent light could also be used to obtain a phase front correlator. 
     The system of FIG. 1 may accurately image extremely rough surfaces such as paper. One embodiment allows imaging of the speckle pattern which is visible on rough surfaces. This can be done by imaging with a resolution that may be better then the diffraction limit. FIGS. 3A and 3B show how this is possible. In FIG. 3, the left side is the phase across the phase object and the right side shows the intensity of the camera pixel as a function of the beam spacing. Two cases are shown: (a) two features within the pixel, (b) one feature within the pixel. FIG. 3A shows the amplitude as a function of beam spacing on a pixel of the camera  140 . Two phase features are being imaged. As the spacing is changed from 0 to the pixel size, the variation in pixel intensity indicates the presence of two steps (left side) that have a width a and a spacing d. 
     FIG. 3B shows the same measurement for a single phase feature. The variation in pixel intensity (right side) shows a single step with width  2   a.  With a conventional imaging system, these two phase systems could not be distinguished. 
     Although only a few embodiments have been described in detail above, other modifications are possible.