To produce high-quality, low-scattering optical interference coatings for laser-gyro application, substrates with extremely
smooth surfaces are required for deposition. For successful production of qualified mirrors, characterization of substrates
before coating is essential. Light scattering has been used for decades to characterize the surface roughness of optical
components. Its application in characterizing the surfaces of transparent substrates, commonly used for deposition, is
difficult due to the low scattering of high-quality substrates and the scattering contribution of substrates' back surface
and volume scattering. Light scattering characterization of transparent substrates for laser-gyro application has been
studied in this paper. It has been found that collecting objective is more propitious to eliminate volume scattering and
scattering from back surfaces of substrates than integrating sphere and more appropriate to characterize superpolished
transparent surfaces of substrates for laser-gyro application. Collecting objective whose N.A. is 0.4 has been designed in
ZEMAX. Careful analysis shows that scattering from back surfaces and volume scattering from points with axile
distances to the front surface more than 1.5 millimeters can be eliminated completely. To solve the drift problem of PMT
used for probing scattering light, specific structure of collecting system has been designed, so that scattering light and
reflecting light can strike on the same PMT orderly. It has been found that the drift problem of PMT could be solved with
this setting, so that the stability of the scattering measurement system over long time span could be improved greatly and
its practicability in engineering has been ensured.
A new method for leveling optical surface automatically based on 2D Position Sensitive Detector
(PSD) was developed and applied in Total Integrated Scatterometer for qualification of superpolished
substrates. For light path in the method, incident laser beam is required to be reflected by the sample
surface onto PSD, which provides light spot position on photosurface at resolution of 5 μm. Firstly, 2D
motorized translation stages under the sample translate it along the two orthogonal translation axes by a
distance, and PSD yields correspondingly three positions, from which the sample surface's attitude
expressed as analytic equation and normal vector is derived. Secondly, 2D motorized goniometers
between the sample and translation stages rotate orderly in each direction of translation axes by angles
computed according to rotation transformation to make the sample surface's normal vector vertical.
Finally flyback translation is performed to verify the spot on PSD photosurface yields no displacement
and the sample surface is level.
In the paper, formulas from three positions to the surface's analytic equation and rotation angles are
deduced in detail. Performance and error analysis according to the scatterometer's actual dimension
shows that the leveling system's adjustable range is ±1.7° and the resolution of two translation axes is
separately 21" and 0.5°. Experiment results show that the three-position leveling method's precision is
less than 0.1°.
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