A surface intrinsic feature based method (SIFBM) for the characterization of optical microstructure

Optical microstructures are small scale topologies which are generally classified as grooves, pyramids, microlens arrays, lenticulations, echells, etc. They are widely used in advanced optics applications. Currently, there is lack of methods for the characterization of surface quality for optical microstructures with sub-micromenter form accuracy and surface finish in the nanometer range. This paper presents a Surface Intrinsic Feature Based Method (SIFBM) which makes use of surface intrinsic properties such as curvatures, normal vectors, torsion, intrinsic frames, etc. They are mapped as special images and image processing techniques are then employed to conduct image registration or correspondences searching by some algorithms such as correlation functions. The surface matching is optimized by corresponding vectors deviations. In the present study, a prototype surface characterization system has been built based on the SIFBM. Primary experimental work has been conducted to validate the proposed method. The results demonstrate that the SIFBM has potential advantages over existing methods.