Microscopic 3-D displacement field measurements using digital speckle photography

A technique to measure object shape and 3-D displacement fields in micro-scale is offered by microscopic stereo digital speckle photography. The displacement of the random features that are often present on many engineering surfaces when viewed in a microscope is measured with the system, using image correlation. In this paper the equipment, physical model and calibration routines are described. The technique can be applied for sub-mm sized objects of arbitrary shape for small deformation fields. As a verifying experiment, an in-plane rotation of a flat calibration plate is presented. The expected in-plane errors are shown to be less than 0.1 μm and the corresponding out-of-plane errors about three times larger. As a pilot experiment, micro-structural paper expansion is studied, when exposed to humidity. The scaling properties of the microscope as well as the sampling criteria and reliability of the system are discussed in detail.