As the semiconductor industry grows, sub-micron films are becoming more important and more versatile. Characterizations of film thickness is essential in order to determine the optimum process conditions to minimize defects on the product. Spectral interferometry can directly obtain axial information about the sample. However, if the optical thickness of the film is less than 1 μm, the frequency domain information of the upper and lower surfaces overlap each other and cannot be separated, making it impossible to introduce the film thickness. We propose a spectral interferometry method for obtaining thin film information by fitting Fourier transform spectra to the thickness of thin films up to 1 μm. We built a Michelson-type interferometric structure and measured to obtain the interference spectrum between the reflected light of a thin film sample on a silicon substrate and a reference mirror. The Fourier transform spectrum reflecting the axial information was obtained by using the Fourier transform of the interference spectrum, and then the optical range difference between the sample and the reference mirror was obtained by peak finding. Further, a fitting model of the Fourier transform spectrum is obtained. Finally, the film thickness is obtained by minimizing the error function. We used INTERCONNECT to simulate the system and verified that the scheme is effective. In addition, we measured several film samples with different thicknesses, which are consistent with commercial ellipsometry measurements.
We present an improved dispersion-encoded full-range technique that is suitable for samples with a wide range of depths. Considering that the detection optical signal caused by the rough surface of the sample is weak, the signal is easily submerged by the disturbance term and the phase compensation is not accurate. In this paper, the DC is removed by subtracting the envelope of the interference spectrum, so that the DC broadening in the spatial domain is suppressed and the weak signal near the 0 optical path can be resolved. Considering the problem of unwrapping phase error caused by the inherent defects of the system, the accuracy of dispersion phase extraction is improved by evaluating the phase continuity and removing the greatly affected data. Using the proposed measurement method, the depth measurement range of the system is extended from 6mm to 12mm, and the full-depth image of the ceramic standard step block is measured experimentally.
The utilization of film cooling holes design can ensure rapid cooling of the aero engines turbine to achieve effective blade protection. To achieve optimal cooling, geometric features such as aperture, hole spacing and cone angle of the film cooling holes are necessary to be measured. We propose a spectral interferometry system method, which can measure aperture and depth of the holes and surface topography of the engine blade, and calculate the geometric characteristics of the holes by processing this information by 3d point cloud. Comparing the measurement result of our system with the measurement result of film cooling holes slice, it can be obtained that the error of aperture and spacing of holes is about 20μm, the repeated measurement accuracy is 0.8μm, and the cone angle error is about 2°.
Considering actual industrial production, precise positioning for irregularly shaped workpiece is required. If the workpiece is located by the method of machine vision, the critical step is to get the position of workpiece contour in image. However the edge information quality in image can be affected by workpiece shape, material, lighting method and other factors. Especially for the complex edge information, the traditional edge detection algorithm is usually hard to eliminate the noise points near the true edge, these noise points will be misjudged as true edge points, which will reduce the accuracy of the contour positioning results. In this paper, a precise contour positioning method for workpiece with irregular shape was proposed. Firstly, based on the initial results of template matching, edge detection region with variable size according to the edge normal direction was created, then a set of edge points can be obtained. Secondly, according to the correlation between true edge points, the position deviation of each point was calculated, and the edge point evaluation function was defined by combining gradient amplitude and position deviation. Finally, removing the points with lower defined scores to obtain final set of edge points, which determines the position of workpiece contour in image. The experiments show that this method can effectively exclude noise points in edge point set, obtain the true contour of workpiece with any shape, and overcome the shortcomings that the traditional edge detection algorithm is greatly influenced by edge noise. The method has high accuracy, stability and strong practicality.
An automatic registration method for Surface Mount Technology (SMT) stencil image is proposed. During the registration, the minimum bounding rectangle(MBR) of the Stencil changes with the stencil’s arbitrary placement and angle, while the absolute minimum distance between the registration feature point and the rectangle vertex remains unchanged. This character can be used to solve the random error and failure rate in stencil placement. With three feature points in standard Gerber data image and in stencil image, the affine transformation is carried out. After mapping the coordinate systems of the Gerber image and the stencil image are consistent with each other. Then the internal automatic matching test and secondary registration are introduced to improve the accuracy. The results of experiment show that this method can significantly improve the efficiency and intelligence level of SMT.
Nowadays, more and more underwater electricity or communication cables and oil or gas pipelines have been installing. Equipment aging and damages to them have caused series of accidents, resulting in huge economic loss and environmental pollution. This paper proposes a long distance underwater linear object detection method based on range-gated optical imaging, which can help the maintenance and inspections of underwater cables and pipelines. The whole object detection algorithm can be divided into three stages: image enhancement, edge detection and object detection. In the image enhancement step, The system deals with the low contrast, blur and noises characteristics of underwater images by means of contrast normalization, median filtering, wavelet transform, and finally gets high quality images. Then, the Canny operator was used to extract object's edge features. Finally, for the emergence of noise edges, a robust algorithm named Random Sample Consensus was chosen to accurately detect linear object and estimate its parameters such as position and direction. This algorithm has been tested on the experimental data in the boat tank of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, collected with a range-gated imaging system. The results show that the algorithm can effectively detect underwater curved-linear objects, with the detection rate achieving 96%, and the effective detection range can be up to 5 times the length of the underwater decay.
We have developed a novel light scattering measurement system based on a microfluidic trap to measure the elastic light scattering of micro-particles. The particles were captured from the sample suspension by a microfluidic chip with a hydrodynamic trapping, which were stably immobilized at the predetermined position by the pressure gradient and friction in the micro-channel. The trapped particles were illuminated by a He-Ne laser after refractive index matching, and a narrow-field photodetector designed by the spatial filter and a photomultiplier mounted on a homocentric rotating platform was used to detecting the scattering light. In this paper, we have improved this measurement system. By reducing the background scattering of microfluidic chip to improve the signal-noise ratio and using precise control, we measured the 23.75μm diameter polystyrene microsphere’s light scattering distribution, the results showed a good agreement on the trend with the curves of theoretical result. At the same time, using the microfluidic trap, we captured two particles (same size and different size) in a fixed orientation with touching components and obtained the light scattering distribution.
In order to figure out how changes in equipment and environment impact the imaging result and find out a best imaging condition, in this paper, microbubbles with micron diameter is detected and imaged through a simulated supercavity layer in laboratory. After the image processing, the result shows the changes in distance of bubble region affect the imaging little. When the detection angle is 90 degrees, the bubbles have the clearest imaging. And the growth of bubble number in imaging is increasing with current and reaching saturation at a constant value, and the smaller the diameter of bubble is, the higher sensitivity towards current has.
In this paper, we designed a pint-sized underwater pulsed lidar system for underwater obstacles detection based on a 532nm Nd-YAG pulsed laser as a source and a Hamamatsu photomultiplier tube (PMT) as a detector. In order to acquire the location of the obstacles, an algorithm was devised to handle the echo signal. Through this algorithm, the background noise was suppressed and the accurate range information of the target was obtained. A high-capacity lithium battery was employed to support this lidar system operating as long as eight hours continuously. To ensure our lidar system working steady in the natural underwater environment, a stable waterproof housing was designed for the system which has good water-tightness at 40m depth underwater. This system is small, compact and hand-held. An experiment was conducted in laboratory which proof that the system can achieve target detection within 25m. At last, this lidar system was tested in natural underwater environment of Fuxian Lake in Yunnan Province. There are lots of organic particles and other impurity particles in Fuxian Lake and the attenuation coefficient of the lake is about 0.67m-1. The results showed that this small-size lidar system was able to catch sight of the target within 20 meters and perform smoothly in the natural underwater environment.
KEYWORDS: Modulation, Monte Carlo methods, LIDAR, Backscatter, Target detection, Signal detection, Ocean optics, Signal processing, Computer simulations, Submerged target detection
A typical modulated pulse bathymetric lidar system is investigated by simulation using a modulated pulse lidar simulation system. In the simulation, the return signal is generated by Monte Carlo method with modulated pulse propagation model and processed by mathematical tools like cross-correlation and digital filter. Computer simulation results incorporating the modulation detection scheme reveal a significant suppression of the water backscattering signal and corresponding target contrast enhancement. More simulation experiments are performed with various modulation and reception variables to investigate the effect of them on the bathymetric system performance.
Small bubbles are widely present in the marine environment, the presence of small bubbles generated by whitecaps, microorganisms, ships sailing will greatly affect the optical properties of seawater. A lot of work has been carried out around the detection of small bubbles, this article will introduce a method of detecting small bubbles underwater with the way of high-speed imaging underwater. The optical mechanisms to measure the parameters of small bubbles are mainly high-speed photography, laser interferometry and holography. The advantages of high-speed photography are intuitive and low cost, the experimenters can real-time monitor the shooting circumstances, and can obtain more detailed parameters concerning the small bubbles. The paper also discusses an experimental method of high-speed imaging for small bubbles in water, that is to get a cooperative target in the back of the bubbles, then shoot the bubbles, and a lot of experiments with the two methods have been done. In order to compare the imaging quality of the two sets of experiments intuitively, the histograms and the results of edge detecting of the pictures have been given. After compared the results, it is found that the images are clearer and higher in contrast in the case of there is a cooperative target behind the bubbles, and with the imaging rate of the high-speed camera increases, the image quality is significantly reduced.
Based on optical total reflection critical Angle method, we have designed a refractive index measurement system. It adopted a divergent light source and a CCD camera as the occurrence and receiver of the signal. The divergent light source sent out a bunch of tapered beam, exposure to the interface of optical medium and sulfuric acid solution. Light intensity reflected from the interface could be detected by the CCD camera and then sent to the embedded system. In the DSP embedded system, we could obtain the critical edge position through the light intensity distribution curve and converted it to critical angle. Through experiment, we concluded the relation between liquid refractive index and the critical angle edge position. In this system, the detecting precision of the refractive index of sulfuric acid solution reached 10-4. Finally, through the conversion of the refractive index and density, we achieved high accuracy online measurement of electrolyte density in lead-acid battery.
It is commonly known that absorption and scattering are the main causes of reducing performance of imaging system, especially imaging distance and resolution. Generally, various techniques are applied to decrease the effect of scattering, such as synchronous scanning and range-gated technique. Continuous-laser imaging technique meets requirements of imaging objects in the large field of view in real time, but imaging distance is less than 2 attenuation lengths in natural water. High-repetition-rate green laser, called quasi-continuous wave (QCW) green laser, is a better light source for underwater imaging. It has 1 kHz-100 kHz modulated rate, and its single pulse peak power is KW magnitude, which can be applied to range-gated imaging as Canadian LUCIE system. In addition, its polarization property is excellent for underwater polarization imaging. Therefore, it has enormous potential to underwater imaging. In order to realize its performance in underwater imaging system, we setup a separated underwater staring imaging system. For this system, a theoretic model is built by the lidar equation and optic transmission theory, and the system is evaluated by modulation transfer function (MTF). The effects of laser and receiver’s parameters for the system are analyzed. Then the comparative experiments are conducted in turbid water in laboratory. The results indicate that high pulse energy improves imaging distance. Aperture and polarization could reduce the effect of scattering effectively in staring system. The result shows that this underwater system performs better by choosing suitable parameters of source and receiver.
Sizing a small particle from its scattered field has been a long-standing problem. Popular established methods require a priori knowledge of either the refractive index of the particle, or the approximate particle size range. In this paper, the diffraction tomography (DT) theory is studied and a single particle sizing approach using angular optical scattering field is proposed. There is a Fourier relationship between the scattering amplitude in the far zone and the scattering potential of the scatterer, under the 1st-order Born approximation for weakly scattering. Based on this relationship, the distribution of scattering potential can be retrieved from angular resolved scattered field by the use of a fast Fourier transform. Single particle size is estimated from the scattering potential. Numerical simulations for spherical particles are presented and discussed. Simulation results show that in the case of low contrast, the size of the particles can be estimated accurately in the presence of moderate noise. A further variant of this algorithm based on Rytov approximation is also discussed.
We present a fast, simple, sub-pixel algorithm on the critical angle refractometer to measure the refractive index of the liquid sample by determining the centroid of the light intensity of the relative reflective curve. The centroid algorithm utilizes a divergent fiber-coupled royal blue LED source to irradiate on the dielectric surface between the prism and the media, which generates the light intensity distribution of the reflectance facula. Instead of the critical angle pixel as the differential algorithm and the threshold algorithm, the sub pixel centroid algorithm is based on calculating the centroid value of the light intensity of the relative reflective curve. In some moderate turbid solutions, the centroid algorithm is less sensitive to the scattering and absorption than the differential algorithm and the threshold algorithm. It is possible to utilize the centroid point of the relative reflective curve to determine the refractive index. Supported by the theoretical analysis and experimental results on saline solutions, we can conclude that the proposed algorithm is effective to get the super resolution and meaningful to the refractive index measurement of the liquid. The critical angle refractometer with this centroid method is potential to be a high-accuracy, high-resolution, and reliable automatic refractometer.
An improved calibration method for digital Abbe refractometer is proposed. Based on Fresnel reflection theory, digital
Abbe refractometer measures the index of refraction by processing bright-dark pattern images. For extreme environment
applications, our team has developed a digital Abbe refractometer. By analyzing bright-dark pattern images, it shows
optical aberration may reduce positioning accuracy on critical angle. The main work of this paper is to propose a new
calibrate method for digital Abbe refractometer. An optical system is built to simulate the refractometer. A motorized
micropositioning stage is inserted to precisely control the position of bright-dark boundary. An area CCD captures an
image each time boundary displaced. Get the boundary through entire measuring range to form an image database. The
database indicates the corresponding relations between bright-dark pattern image acquired by CCD camera and boundary
position read by motorized stage. When measuring the refractive index of liquid, match its bright-dark pattern image to
images in database, and get the boundary position from the nearest match. Compared to the former method of computing
boundary position from images with aberration, the proposed method calibrate refractometer by large amount of
experimental data, thus improve stability of the measurement.
KEYWORDS: Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, Modulation, Phase shifts, Multiplexing, Polarization, Dense wavelength division multiplexing, Fourier transforms, Signal processing, Signal to noise ratio, Signal detection
Optical frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a promising method to exploit the vast bandwidth of singlemode
optical fiber. A key issue in OFDM implementation is the absolute frequency accuracy of each individual
channel. The generation of high-quality and free-controllable multi-carrier lightwave source based on frequency shift
property of discrete Fourier transform (DFT) is proposed. A 4x100Gb/s all-optical OFDM system by employing
polarization division multiplexed (PDM) non return-to-zero (NRZ) quadrature phase shift keying(QPSK) modulation
format is designed based on our proposed source. The required optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) at bit error rate
(BER) of 1x10-3 for the 400Gb/s all-optical OFDM signal is simulated to be ~23.25dB.
In order to improve underwater range-gated imagery quality, image restoration and super-resolution reconstruction techniques based on maximum a posteriori framework are combined with the point spread function (PSF) of the system. A model based on beam propagation considering time-dependent backscatter is established including the extreme attenuation properties of water and the diffraction limit of sensor for obtaining the PSF. The proposed method is applied for an underwater range-gated imaging system. Performance of the approach is compared with the traditional restoration and reconstruction algorithms. Objective image quality metrics are used to quantify the effectiveness of the restoration and reconstruction. Experimental results showed that the proposed method can effectively improve the resolution and quality of underwater range-gated imaging.
In three-dimensional (3-D) imaging measurement, the center location extraction of laser bar is one of
the critical techniques in determining the metrical precision of the system. The width and brightness of
laser bar varying with the change of detection distance is an important factor which influences on the
center location determination of laser bar. The underwater 3-D imaging quality is directly affected by
light scattering effect of water. Under coordinate conditions, the width increase and brightness decrease
of laser bar brings great impact on the metrical precision of the system. In this paper, the beam spread
characteristics of underwater laser transferring procedure is studied and the relationship among the
beam spread characteristics of underwater laser transferring, laser beam characteristics and correlative
parameters of water is constituted. Finally, based on the existing relationship between beam width and
beam characteristics in 3-D imaging measurement, the factors which affect the precision of underwater
3-D measurement are obtained by computing beam spread function of underwater laser transferring
under diverse conditions. Calculation result shows that the metrical precision enhances for the
improvement of water clarity as well as the reduction of detection distance.
Unlike optical detection of air targets, detecting underwater targets by optical technique is more complicated because of
strong backscattering and absorption attenuation caused by water itself while rays propagating underwater. If a pulsed
laser is employed as the active illuminator of an underwater detection system, it's possible to decrease the effect of
backscattering light from water to a large degree and improve detection distance of the system consequently. In this
paper, a set of underwater optical detection system is designed. This system can be used to detect underwater targets or
micro bubbles in water. In order to optimize the system's performance, different photoelectric detectors are used in the
system and contrastive experiments are implemented. A high-speed PMT and a high-speed PIN photodiode are
employed without adjusting other system components. Accordingly, optical receiving systems and amplification circuits
were designed, and a series of contrastive experiments were implemented. In these experiments, a board and micro
bubbles mass works as targets which are placed in changing distance to detection system. By analyzing of the
experimental results, it is concluded that both of the PMT and PIN detector can detect the reflected signal of board and
micro bubbles effectively in a certain range. And they can be used in different applications because of their different
characteristics.
The sensitivity of lidar (light detection and ranging) and the contrast of immersed targets are strongly reduced by the
volume backscattering clutter. To overcome this shortcoming it has been proposed to use a microwave modulation in
association with an optical carrier at 532nm, which is called modulated lidar. This paper develops a Monte Carlo
simulation for application of modulated pulse lidar (light detection and ranging) in bathymetric measurements. First,
modulated light pulse propagation in ocean water is simulated by a Monte Carlo model. Second, the echo signal is
processed by advanced mathematical tools like cross-correlation and numerical filtering. The simulation results reveal
the capability of the modulation approach in suppressing the water backscattering and enhancing the target contrast for
the bathymetric field. Furthermore, more simulation experiments are performed with various ocean depth to study the
detection performance in different environment. Details of this simulation model, in addition to the simulation results are
presented.
Laser will attenuate during its propagation in water and also be backward scattered by water when it is used to detect
bubbles in the ocean. Meanwhile backward scattering intensity of the bubbles is feeble, its dynamic range reaches to the
order of 6, which saturates PMT and its post-treatment circuit. Timely gating system is used to solve the problem. The
system contains pulsed laser and gating PMT receiver. The wavelength of the laser is 532nm, with pulse width of several
nanometers. Its operational delay is matched with the time period between laser traveling forward and back after
scattered by the target. By doing this, the light scattered by other object is eliminated, dynamic range of the signal
reduces, and consequently SNR increases. In order to avoid Signal Induced Noise(SIN), we choose PMT R1333 having
no HA coating. TTL logical level, which is used as gating signal, controls the first dynode voltage of PMT to implement
gating. Gating speed is about 100ns, of which the width is tunable. By carefully designing the electronic system, SNR is
eliminated to a level as low as possible, and the output signal of PMT is fast integrated in order to reduce the influences
of signal induced by opening the gate.
In the detection of underwater object by air-born lidar, a narrow laser beam reflected by the sea bottom or the underwater
target transfers in the ocean and refracted through the wavy sea surface, then received by the receiver carried by plane
over the sea surface. Because of the scattering by the suspended particles and the effect of the wavy sea surface, the
received signal will to some extent blurred, which will greatly decrease the image quality of the lidar system. Computer
simulation by Monte Carlo method was employed to describe the process of narrow laser beam transferring in the ocean
and refracted by the wavy sea surface. As the result, the intensity distribution on the receiver can be got as well as the
property of image blurring after transferred thought the ocean water and refracted through the wavy sea surface. The
relations between this property and the optical property of seawater, the wind speed above the sea surface were analyzed.
A bubble in water is an example of a scatter for which the refractive index of the core (gas) is less than that of the surroundings. So bubbles in water exhibit scattering phenomena which differs significantly from those for drops in air or solid particles in water. The scattering of bubbles in water as a means to detective the size of bubble has been investigated in many ways such as Mie theory and Davis’s geometric-optics theory. In this paper, a new physics-optics method was applied to manifest the scattering properties of a spherical bubble in water. The angular distribution of intensity of light scattered from a collimated beam that is incident upon a spherical air bubble in water is determined for any bubble with radius greater than a few wavelengths of the incident light. One external reflection, four internal reflections and four refractions are considered. The intensity of scattering light is tabulated and plotted as a function of the observing angle, the effects of the bubble’s radius, the electric field’s polarization of the incidence light and the wavelength of the incidence light on the scattering intensity distribution are also discussed.
In this paper, we adopt YAG Q-switch double frequency solid state laser to drill hole in the water and air on three kinds of material: stainless steel, yellow copper and purple copper separately. The results show the differences in the water and air by comparing. At last, we qualitatively and quantitatively analyze the mechanism of interaction for laser processing in the water. Put forward the feasibility and superiority of the ultra short pulse laser processing underwater. The primary parameters of the laser: the width of pulse 10—100ns; wavelength 1.06m, 0.53?m; the energy of single pulse 0---100mJ; The work piece is placed underwater close to the water surface about 0. 1—2cm, focus distance lens f=60mm, the water is tap water, the thickness of work piece is less than 1mm. The laser with different laser parameters processes the work pieces. The results of the above experinlents indicate that the efficiency of drilling hole in the water is much higher than that in the air. And the quality and sharp of the hole processed is much better than in the air. The best power density of drilled hole in the by laser is mainly determined by material characteristics and the parameters of laser.
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