Patent ID: RE42497

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 beam 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 scattered sample beam; spectrally dispersing the mixed reflected reference beam and the reflected scattered sample beam to yield a single spectrally resolved, spectrally-resolved cross-correlated reflection profile having depth-resolved information about the reflected scattered sample beam; and generating a spectroscopic depth-resolved reflection profile , by processing that includes characteristics of scatterers within the sample by: providing one or more spectral windows of 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 , each of the one or more spectral windows having a given center wavelength to obtain spectral information at the given center wavelength about the sample for each of the one or more spectral windows ; and converting the windowed applying a Fourier transform to the spectral information via a Fourier transform to recover depth-resolved information about the sample at all each given center wavelengths wavelength simultaneously.