Test & Inspection
3-D Optical Microscopes: A Basic Technology Comparison for Metrology Applications
Learn more about 3-D techniques such as white light interferometry and confocal microscopy.

This depicts patterned sapphire substrates with high slope surfaces generated on a white light interferometry-based 3-D microscope. Source: Bruker

Figure 1. Diagram outlining different scanning methods used by confocal microscopes and 3-D microscopes. Source: Bruker

Figure 2. (A) WLI microscopes provide a constant, narrow signal for all objectives. (B) Confocal microscopes produce only a strong and narrow signal at high magnification and wider, weaker signals for lower magnification objectives. Source: Bruker


Figure 3B. 5x thread image of sloped surface generated on a WLI-based 3-D microscope. Source: Bruker

Table 1. Comparison of time to data for best metrology (vertical) resolution for LSCM and WLI. This data assumes a 0.3 megapixel per second image for LSCM, interline transfer rate for image acquisition and subsequent processing for WLI systems. WLI-based systems can produce higher quality data in much less time. Example roughness (Ra) data is from given sample area of interest. Source: Bruker

Figure 4: Image from a WLI 3-D microscope of a wedge bond on a lead frame. Source: Bruker
3-D Optical Microscopy |
Principles of Measurement
Original Application Areas
Lateral Resolution
Measurement Speed
Measurement of Difficult Surfaces: Sloped and Varying Reflectance
Color images
TECH TIPS
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