Interferometer and imaging method therefor

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10422744-B2
Application number	US-201715723796-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 3, 2017
Priority date	Oct 4, 2016
Publication date	Sep 24, 2019
Grant date	Sep 24, 2019

Abstract

Provided is an interferometer for inspecting a test sample. The interferometer includes: a light source for providing a light beam; a beam splitting element, splitting the light beam into first and second incident light, wherein the first incident light is reflected by the test sample into first reflection light; a reflecting element, reflecting the second incident light into second reflection light; an optical detection element, receiving the first and the second reflection light into an interference signal; and a signal processing module, coupled to the optical detection element, for performing spatial differential calculation on the interference signal to generate a demodulation image of the test sample.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An interferometer with demodulation function, used for inspecting a test sample, the interferometer comprising:
a light source being configured to provide a light beam;
a beam splitter being configured to receive and split the light beam from the light source into first incident light and second incident light, the first incident light being incident onto the test sample and reflected as first reflection light;
a reference mirror being configured to receive the second incident light and reflect the second incident light as second reflection light;
an image sensor being configured to receive the first and the second reflection lights to generate an interference signal; and
a signal processor coupled to the image sensor, the signal processor being configured to receive the interference signal and perform spatial differential calculation on the interference signal to generate a demodulation image of the test sample, wherein the signal processor calculates
√{square root over ( C (( I ″) 2 −I′″·I ′))}

to generate the demodulation image, I referring the interference signal, I′ being obtained by performing first-order spatial differential calculation on the interference signal, I″ being obtained by performing second-order spatial differential calculation on the interference signal, Y″ being obtained by performing third-order spatial differential calculation on the interference signal and C being a constant value, wherein the spatial differential calculation consists of an X-differential calculation, a Y-differential calculation and a combined X-differential calculation and Y-differential calculation, and the signal processor is configured to perform the X-differential calculation when the interference signal has variation on an X-direction, perform the Y-differential calculation when the interference signal has variation on a Y-direction and perform the combined X-differential calculation and Y-differential calculation when the interference signal has variation on both the X-direction and the Y-direction.

2. The interferometer according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a stepping motor stage being configured to move the reference mirror in steps, for adjusting an optical path difference (OPD) between a sample arm path and a reference axiii path to obtain a plurality of demodulation images on different internal layers of the test sample;
wherein the test sample is on the sample arm path and the reference mirror is on the reference arm path.

3. The interferometer according to claim 1 , wherein the demodulation image of the test sample is obtained by using a single interference image.

4. An interferometer imaging method used for inspecting a test sample, the interferometer imaging method comprising:
providing a light beam;
splitting the light beam into first incident light and second incident light; emitting the first incident light onto the test sample, wherein the first incident light is reflected as first reflection light;
receiving the second incident light and reflecting the second incident light as second reflection light;
receiving the first and the second reflection lights to generate an interference signal;
and receiving the interference signal and performing spatial differential calculation on the interference signal to generate a demodulation image of the test sample,
wherein the step of performing spatial differential calculation on the interference signal to generate the demodulation image of the test sample comprises:
calculating √{square root over (C((I″) 2 −I′″·I′))} to generate the demodulation image, I referring the interference signal, I′ being obtained by performing first-order spatial differential calculation on the interference signal, I″ being obtained by performing second-order spatial differential calculation on the interference signal, Y″ being obtained by performing third-order spatial differential calculation on the interference signal and C being a constant value, wherein the spatial differential calculation consists of an X-differential calculation, a Y-differential calculation and a combined X-differential calculation and Y-differential calculation, and the X-differential calculation is performed when the interference signal has variation on an X-direction, the Y-differential calculation is performed when the interference signal has variation on a Y-direction and the combined X-differential calculation and Y-differential calculation is performed when the interference signal has variation on both the X-direction and the Y-direction.

5. The interferometer imaging method according to claim 4 , further comprising:
using a stepping motor stage to adjust an optical path difference (OPD) between a sample arm path and a reference arm path to obtain a plurality of demodulation images on different internal layers of the test sample.

6. The interferometer imaging method according to claim 4 , wherein the demodulation image of the test sample is obtained by using a single interference image.

Assignees

• Ind Tech Res Inst

Inventors

• Chang Ting-Wei
• Lee Yuan-Chin
• Chang Chi-Shen
• Chiang Hung-Chih
• Chen Shuen-Chen

Classifications

• G01B9/02091

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• G01B9/00

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• G01N2021/1787

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• G01B7/26 Primary

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