KEYWORDS: Sensors, Distortion, Modulation transfer functions, Spatial frequencies, Imaging systems, Optical transfer functions, Point spread functions, Optical engineering, Signal to noise ratio, Prototyping
A novel sensor for use in displacement metrology is proposed. It is based on grating imaging, which conventionally uses two amplitude gratings to generate a sinusoidal image. In the conventional method, the poor signal-to-noise ratio of the displacement output is one of the barriers to precise measurement, because 75% of the illumination light is trapped by the two amplitude gratings. In the proposed sensor a cylindrical lens array and a sine phase grating are used as the first and the second grating, respectively. Therefore, the illumination light is intercepted by neither, so that four times higher displacement signal amplitude than that of the conventional sensor can be expected. Consequently, four times higher signal-to-noise ratio can be obtained. Furthermore, the proposed sensor generates a sinusoidal output with little distortion by using the sine phase grating with optimized conditions, so that accurate measurement can be expected. In our prototype, a cylindrical lens array with a 200-µm period and a reflective sine phase grating with a 100-µm period were used.
KEYWORDS: Sensors, Optical transfer functions, Distortion, Modulation transfer functions, Metrology, Point spread functions, Spatial frequencies, Staring arrays, Signal to noise ratio, Reflectivity
A novel sensor for use in displacement metrology is proposed. The proposed displacement sensor is based on the grating
imaging, which conventionally uses two amplitude gratings with rectangular apertures of fifty percent width of the
period. In the conventional way, signal to noise ratio of displacement output is one of issues to be overcome for precise
measurement because about seventy five percent of the illumination light is trapped by two amplitude gratings. On the
other hand, in the proposed sensor a cylindrical lens array and a phase grating are applied as the first and the second
grating, respectively. Therefore, the illumination light is trapped neither by the first grating nor the second grating except
absorption.
In our experiments, the cylindrical lens array with 200 μm period and the reflective sine phase grating with 100 μm
period are used. Experimental results demonstrate that higher position resolution and higher accuracy of the
displacement measurement is feasible by our proposal.
A novel design for a compact and robust micro optical distance sensor is presented. It is suitable for mass fabrication by micro molding known form the LIGA technique [1] and automatic assembly. Due to a modular design approach a distributed fabrication of the device modules is currently implemented. This allows a separate fabrication of the modules at several manufacturers each one being an expert for the special technology needed to fabricate the module. During the design phase not only the optical specification of the sensor system but also all requirements given by the manufacturers, such as easy manufacturability with high throughput as well as defined interfaces need to be considered.
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