Nanometer-precision surface metrology of millimeter-sized stepped objects using full-cascade-linked synthetic-wavelength digital holography using a line-by-line full-mode-extracted optical frequency comb

Opt Express. 2023 May 22;31(11):18088-18097. doi: 10.1364/OE.483408.

Abstract

Digital holography (DH) is a powerful tool for the surface profilometry of objects with sub-wavelength precision. In this article, we demonstrate full-cascade-linked synthetic-wavelength DH for nanometer-precision surface metrology of millimeter-sized stepped objects. 300 modes of optical frequency comb (OFC) with different wavelengths are sequentially extracted at a step of mode spacing from a 10GHz-spacing, 3.72THz-spanning electro-optic modulator OFC. The resulting 299 synthetic wavelengths and a single optical wavelength are used to generate a fine-step wide-range cascade link covering within a wavelength range of 1.54 µm to 29.7 mm. We determine the sub-millimeter and millimeter step differences with axial uncertainty of 6.1 nm within the maximum axial range of 14.85 mm.