title: Full-field heterodyne interference microscope with spatially incoherent illumination.
abstract: A heterodyne interference microscope arrangement for full-field imaging is described. The reference and object beams are formed with highly correlated, time-varying laser speckle patterns. The speckle illumination confers a confocal transfer function to the system, and by temporal averaging, the coherence noise that often degrades coherent full-field microscope images is suppressed. The microscope described is similar to a Linnik-type microscope and allows the use of high-numerical-aperture objective lenses, but the temporal coherence of the illumination permits the use of a low-power achromatic doublet in the reference arm. The use of a doublet simplifies alignment of the microscope and can reduce the cost. Preliminary results are presented that demonstrate full-field surface height precision of 1 nm rms.
authors.affiliation: Applied Optics Group, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. mark.pitter@nottingham.ac.uk
authors.forename: Mark C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Pitter
authors.forename: Chung W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: See
authors.forename: Michael G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Somekh