Heterodyne polarimetry for mapping defects in lithography masks

A new optical technique based on the heterodyne polarimetry is developed for fast inspection of uniformity of lithography masks in semiconductor industry. Sub-wavelength periodical structure of a sample acts as a wire-grid polarizer, making both the amplitude and phase of the reflected laser beam dependent on geometrical dimensions and optical properties of the mask pattern. The heterodyne technology based on the cross-polarized two-frequency Zeeman laser is used to simultaneously measure the amplitude and the phase of the reflected laser beam. A two-dimensional map of spatial variations can be obtained via point-by-point scanning of the sample. The technique is applicable not only to exact periodical structures like diffraction gratings, but also to double-periodical patterns consisting of large number of periodically distributed small areas of sub-wavelength gratings. Theoretical background, simulation, and experimental results are presented.     

Polarimetric Measurement of Plasma Poloidal Magnetic Field via Heterodyne Phase Shift Methods

The rotation of the plane of polarization of radiation propagating through a magnetized plasma (Faraday effect) yields the line integral of the electron density times the longitudinal magnetic field component. A commonly used technique for this measurement senses the change in intensity of a laser beam after passing through a linear polarizer. Two methods often employed to facilitate detection are 1) to mix the transmitted beam with a frequency-offset reference beam to allow heterodyne detection and 2) to oscillate the polarization direction of the laser beam. In addition to being sensitive to spurious amplitude variations, such amplitude measurements are sensitive to small polarization ellipticities introduced by optical components as well as by transverse magnetic fields within the plasma. By the addition of a quarter wave plate, the Faraday rotation can alternatively be sensed as a phase shift of the heterodyne beat of two frequency-offset input beams relative to the case of no plasma. This scheme has the advantage of phase modulation over amplitude modulation, i.e., independence of absolute amplitude and weak dependence on amplitude change. We demonstrate with Jones matrix algebra how the measured phase shift depends only weakly on imperfections and angular alignments of the optical components. Moreover, the phase shifts can be increased more than an order of magnitude by deliberate modifications in the basic optical configuration at a sacrifice of comparable amounts of the amplitude modulation of the carrier from which the phase shift is determined.     

利用法布里-珀罗腔抑制电光相位调制中的剩余幅度调制

激光经电光相位调制后,由于剩余幅度调制的存在造成调制边带幅度不相等。利用法布里-珀罗腔的透射特性和Pound-Drever-Hall技术对通过法布里-珀罗腔的调制光正、负一级边带的幅度产生不同的衰减,使得调制边带的幅度相等,从而实现对电光相位调制中剩余幅度调制的抑制。采用该方法,理论上计算了调制光经法布里-珀罗腔后的光外差光谱信号,获得锁定法布里-珀罗腔后调制边带幅度的不对称度较腔锁定前减小四个数量级。实验研究了调制光经法布里-珀罗腔透射的光外差光谱,结果表明将法布里-珀罗腔锁定于该透射光外差光谱中心零位时,对剩余幅度调制的抑制程度可达45 dB。     

Investigation of glass panels thickness profile by all-fiber digital heterodyne interferometry

All-fiber digital heterodyne interferometry is a laser metrology technique employing pseudo-random codes phase modulated onto an optical carrier signal. In this heterodyne interferometer system, the optical signal includes signal reflected and transmitted from the sample, respectively. Compared with the conventional heterodyne interferometry, this enhanced optical system has much higher measurement sensitivity, and can distinguish the signal which reflected from the front and the rear surface of the sample. Analysis and simulation for the digital heterodyne interferometry are presented. It takes approximately 4 s to scan the whole surface with the diameter of 300 mm. The thickness profile of the sample is obtained in the experiment. The discussion about the experiment is given finally.     

Acoustic field imaging by light reflection at the free surface of a liquid

In this paper we present a novel technique for acoustic field imaging. This technique is based on reflection of a collimated laser beam at the free surface of a liquid. The reflected beam becomes phase modulated by the acoustic wave as in acoustical holographic systems. We do not use a reference acoustical beam for holographic reconstruction but we observe this phase modulation using dark-field techniques. It gives a measurement of the acoustic field power as a function of the position. The authors have built an optical imaging system and carried out experiments with piezocomposite transducers. The technique presented in this work is able to give fast quantitative information about the performance of individual ceramic rods of the piezocomposite.     

调Q激光光折变自适应光外差探测技术研究

基于光折变晶体中自泵浦与互泵浦相位共轭共存效应,利用新型光折变自适应光外差探测系统进行了调Q脉冲激光的光折变自适应光外差探测技术研究.结果表明,该系统可以用来实现单纵模调Q脉冲激光的自适应光外差探测,并可以通过提高本振光强度有效地提高外差探测灵敏度.进一步的实验和理论分析表明,对于一般的调Q脉冲激光,由于其各个纵模频谱分量之间不相关,难于实现光外差探测.     

Dynamic two-frequency interferometry for small displacement measurements

Two-frequency interferometry for small displacement measurements is examined from a practical point of view. A laser beam that is modulated sinusoidally in intensity by an acousto-optic Bragg cell provides signal and reference optical waves to produce dynamic interference. The output signal of a photodetector receiving the interference is composed of optical homodyne and heterodyne components. The heterodyne component carries a vibrational displacement to be detected on its amplitude. A sinusoidal vibration amplitude is measured down to 0.5 nm.     

A cw CO2 laser rangefinder using heterodyne detection and on-off amplitude modulation

A CO₂ laser rangefinder has been built that uses an acousto-optic modulator to obtain an amplitude modulated optical beam from a cw laser. An on-off deflected beam was obtained by driving the modulator with a carrier modulated by a periodic binary code. The received infra-red radiation was heterodyne detected. After envelope detection of the heterodyne signal, the signal-to-noise ratio was improved by applying a digital integrator. Ranging was carried out by calculating the delay of the received code by means of a cross-correlation technique. For this purpose a minicomputer was implemented in the system. Using 1 W average beam power and measuring times less than 1 s, ranges of several kilometers have been determined from stationary targets.     

Controlling the phase of a light beam with a single molecule

We employ heterodyne interferometry to investigate the effect of a single organic molecule on the phase of a propagating laser beam. We report on the first phase-contrast images of individual molecules and demonstrate a single-molecule electro-optical phase switch by applying a voltage to the microelectrodes embedded in the sample. Our results may find applications in single-molecule holography, fast optical coherent signal processing, and single-emitter quantum operations.     

Measurement of the frequency modulation transfer function of a laser using a Mach–Zehnder interferometer

A technique is presented for determining the frequency modulation transfer function of a laser. The method is based on a Mach–Zehnder interferometer, with a significant difference in the optical path lengths of the two arms. A frequency-modulated laser beam incident on the interferometer produces a phase-modulated photocurrent signal with an effective modulation index that is related to the amplitude of the optical frequency modulation. Techniques for determining both the amplitude and the phase of the optical frequency modulation from the photocurrent signal are described.     

Injection-locking technique for heterodyne optical phase locking of a diode laser

A novel technique is demonstrated for heterodyne optical phase locking of a diode laser to a single-frequency source by injection seeding. By modulation of the drive current of the diode laser at as much as several gigahertz, FM sidebands are imposed upon the output. We demonstrate that it is possible to phase lock either sideband to an injected beam. The carrier of the diode laser output is therefore locked in phase with the injected light but with a frequency difference given by the modulation of the drive current. The phase fluctuations between the lasers are analyzed, and the variance is found to be (4.4( degrees ))(2) , corresponding to 99.4% of the diode carrier light locked to the injected beam.     

用塞曼双频激光器作光源的一种新颖长扫描表面的仪器设计

本文报道一套光学结构用于同步辐射反射镜表面轮廓高精度大面积的测量。采用了光学外差测量与接收技术,以伺服聚焦双折射透镜组分离“o”光与“e”光的聚焦区域,并再共轴组合比较其相位差,从而获得表面起伏的误差值。线性运动的测量工作台使镜面可测量范围从数微米到一米,而最小起伏量及曲率可达很高的测量精度。     

计算海面激光反射特性的几何光学方法研究

研究了计算海面激光反射的几何光学方法。首先根据JONSWAP非稳态海谱模型数值模拟出二维随机粗糙海面,再采用几何光学方法对入射激光光束在海面上的反射光进行建模,最后计算出海面激光光斑反射光强的空间分布。编制了相关的计算机程序,分析了在不同入射角度和不同风速下的激光光束反射特性。计算结果表明该方法对研究二维随机粗糙海表面激光反射特性有一定参考价值。     

Laser phase and frequency stabilization using an optical resonator

We describe a new and highly effective optical frequency discriminator and laser stabilization system based on signals reflected from a stable Fabry-Perot reference interferometer. High sensitivity for detection of resonance information is achieved by optical heterodyne detection with sidebands produced by rf phase modulation. Physical, optical, and electronic aspects of this discriminator/laser frequency stabilization system are considered in detail. We show that a high-speed domain exists in which the system responds to the phase (rather than frequency) change of the laser; thus with suitable design the servo loop bandwidth is not limited by the cavity response time. We report diagnostic experiments in which a dye laser and gas laser were independently locked to one stable cavity. Because of the precautions employed, the observed sub-100 Hz beat line width shows that the lasers were this stable. Applications of this system of laser stabilization include precision laser spectroscopy and interferometric gravity-wave detectors.     

An optical method and neural network for surface roughness measurement

The measurement of surface roughness using stylus equipment has several disadvantages. A non-contact optical method is needed for measuring the surface roughness of engineering metals with improved accuracy. One candidate for an optical method is the use of a laser source, where the laser light intensity reflected from the surface represents the surface roughness of the illuminated area. A relation can be developed between the reflected laser beam intensity and the surface roughness of the metal. The present study examines the measurement of the surface roughness of the stainless steel samples using a He-Ne laser beam. In the measurement a Gaussian curve parameter of a Gaussian function approximating the peak of the reflected intensity is measured with a fast response photodetector. In order to achieve this, an experimental setup is designed and built. In the experimental apparatus, fiber-optic cables are used to collect the reflected beam from the surface. The output of the fiber-optic system is fed to a back-propagation neural network to classify the resulting surface profile and predict the surface roughness value. The results obtained from the present study are then compared with the stylus measurement results. It is found that the resolution of the surface texture improves considerably in the case of optical method and the neural network developed for this purpose can classify the surface texture according to the control charts developed mathematically.     

Vibrating Wire for Profile Measurements of Thin Beams in Particle Accelerators: Preliminary Tests Using a Laser Beam

The possibility of using a vibrating wire as a target in the method of scanning transverse profiles of the thin beams in particle accelerators has been studied. In the case where the transverse dimensions of the beam are comparable to the amplitude of the wire oscillations, the vibrating wire can be used for a fast measurement of the transverse beam profile without moving the sensor. The scanning procedure is replaced by the use of the movement of the wire during its mechanical oscillations. The method is tested on a focused beam of a semiconductor laser with a spot size at the focus of ～0.1 mm. The reconstruction of the transverse profile is performed on the basis of the measurements of the photons reflected from the vibrating wire by using fast photodiodes.     

Advanced Heterodyne Interferometer with Common Path for Roughness Measurement

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Recording depth of the heterodyne laser interferometer for cochlear vibration measurement

Measurement of the cochlear partition vibration as a function of the optical-axis (z-axis) position in the gerbil cochlea showed that the velocity distributes over a range of more than 300 microm, which is larger than the thickness of the cochlear partition. This finding suggests that the recording depth (RD) of the heterodyne interferometer probably is not as small as reported in the literature. In the current experiment, the RD of the heterodyne laser interferometer was studied by measuring the velocity of a vibrating mirror as a function of the z-axis position. Results demonstrate that the optical sectioning characteristic, measured by the intensity of the reflected laser beam as a function of the z-axis position, is not able to correctly estimate the RD of the heterodyne interferometer: the RD is much larger than optical sectioning, indicating a poor spatial resolution along the z axis.     

An optical method and neural network for surface roughness measurement

The measurement of surface roughness using the stylus equipment has several disadvantages. A non-contact optical method becomes demanding for measuring the surface roughness of the engineering metals with improved accuracy. One of the candidates for the optical method is the use of a laser source in which case the reflected laser light intensity from the surface may represent the surface roughness of the illuminated area. Consequently, a relation can be developed between the reflected laser beam intensity and the surface roughness of the metals. The present study examines the measurement of the surface roughness of the stainless-steel samples using a He–Ne laser beam. In the measurement, a Gaussian curve parameter of a Gaussian function approximating the peak of the reflected intensity is measured with a fast response photodetector. To achieve this, an experimental setup is designed and realized. In the experimental apparatus, fiber-optic cables are used to collect the reflected beam from the surface. The output of the fiber-optic system is fed to a backpropagation neural network to classify the resulting surface profile and predict the surface roughness value. The results obtained from the present study is, then, compared with the stylus measurement results. It is found that the resolution of the surface texture improves considerably in the case of optical method and the neural network developed for this purpose can classify the surface texture according to the control charts developed mathematically.     

变光外差为电外差的双频激光探测

演示一种双频激光位移探测系统,阐述光载波激光雷达的概念。由单块非平面环形腔固体激光器和声光调制器产生100MHz载波频率的双频激光束,作为探测光束,经过光路收发系统,探测位于电动导轨上目标的位移变化,信号处理部分采用高速光电探测器响应后信号的电子外差解调方式,位移量的获得通过高频锁相放大器解算参考光束与信号光束的相位差并计算获得。通过双频激光把光学外差探测变为了电子外差探测,系统重复误差小于3%。系统在利用无线电雷达信号处理方式的同时,保留了激光探测的优点,位移测量系统具有良好的重复性。