The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 20, 2008
Filed:
Dec. 03, 2004
Sen Han, Tucson, AZ (US);
Erik K. Novak, Tucson, AZ (US);
Sen Han, Tucson, AZ (US);
Erik K. Novak, Tucson, AZ (US);
Veeco Instruments, Inc., Tucson, AZ (US);
Abstract
A collimated light is used in combination with a compensation element and an aberration-corrected objective with a long working distance to produce a greatly improved fringe contrast in the measurement of a sample surface through a dispersive element. When the dispersive element consists of a fixed cover with substantially consistent characteristics from sample to sample, the compensation element is a plate that matches the optical characteristics of the dispersive element. When the dispersive element varies, the compensation element consists of a variable-thickness transmissive element embodied in a pair of half-cube prisms is adapted to slide along the beam-splitting plane, thereby permitting the adjustment of the optical path-length through the splitter in the reference-beam direction while retaining unchanged the optical path-length in the test-beam direction.