Patent ID: 7542144

Claim:
A method of inspecting geometrical variations and thickness of an object comprising: obtaining a 3-dimensional imaging wavefront, which has an amplitude and a phase, by reflecting radiation from an object to be viewed, wherein said radiation reflected from said object has a plurality of wavelength components, thereby obtaining multiple indications of the phase and amplitude of the 3-dimensional imaging wavefront, wherein each such indication corresponds to a different wavelength component, and each such indication is proportional to either geometrical variations in the object or thickness of the object; and analyzing the 3-dimensional imaging wavefront by: transforming the 3-dimensional imaging wavefront including a plurality of different wavelength components, thereby obtaining a transformed wavefront including a plurality of different wavelength components and applying phase changes to the plurality of different wavelength components of the transformed wavefront, thereby obtaining a plurality of differently phase changed transformed wavefronts corresponding to the 3-dimensional imaging wavefront, obtaining a plurality of intensity maps of the plurality of differently phase changed transformed wavefronts, and employing the plurality of intensity maps to obtain an output indicating the amplitude and phase of the 3-dimensional imaging wavefront.