Patent ID: 7102758

Claim:
A method of obtaining depth-resolved spectra of a sample for determining size and depth characteristics of scatterers within the sample, comprising the steps of: emitting a beam onto a splitter, wherein the splitter is fixed with respect to the sample, and wherein the splitter splits light from the bean to produce a reference beam, which is reflected to produce a reflected reference beam, and an input beam to the sample comprised of a substrate having a first surface and a second surface; cross-correlating the reflected reference beam with a reflected sample beam scattered from the sample as a result of the input beam by mixing the reflected reference beam and the reflected sample beam; spectrally dispersing the mixed reflected reference beam and the reflected sample beam to yield a single spectrally resolved, cross-correlated reflection profile having depth-resolved information about the reflected sample beam; and generating a spectroscopic depth-resolved reflection profile, by processing the single spectrally-resolved cross-correlated reflection profile by: at a plurality of different center wavelengths, applying a window to the single spectrally-resolved cross-correlated reflection profile at a given center wavelength to obtain spectral information at the given center wavelength; and converting the windowed spectral information via a Fourier transform to recover depth-resolved information about the sample at all center wavelengths simultaneously.