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FlashPhase Surface Measurement in noisy environments

FlashPhase is a new product from Zygo that enables measurements to be made using just one frame of interference pattern information to make the measurement. As such, FlashPhase offers advantages over the standard methods of measuring surface form and transmitted wavefront.

The FlashPhase advantage over the industry standard Phase measuring technology is that it requires only one frame of information as opposed to the 7 or 13 frames required for Zygo's phase measuring systems. This reduces the measurement time down from several hundred milliseconds to 30 microseconds in some cases. This has the effect of making FlashPhase immune to most cases of vibration and enables it to make measurements where Phase systems may fail. The Phase systems will still give the highest resolution and best repeatability and are still the favoured option for Metrology Room measurements.

FlashPhase also has the advantage over the Static Fringe Analysis techniques as it uses all of the information from the interferogram to produce the result as opposed to only using the "dark fringe" centers which the static technique uses.



So, when should you use FlashPhase? There are three main areas where FlashPhase is a major bonus.

  1. Adding FlashPhase to an existing or new Phase Measuring Interferometer such as the GPI-XP, GPI-XPHR, GPI-HS or VeriFire AT will give it the capability to measure in difficult environments or situations. These can include production environments, very long path length cavities, large spherical optics, low temperature measurement and similar difficult situations. Adding FlashPhase to these systems allows the user to select the best measurement acquisition method for the measurement situation. Choose Standard Phase for Metrology Lab static environments or choose FlashPhase for more dynamic interferometry. By combining Standard Phase and FlashPhase in the one instrument gives you the best of both worlds.
  2. Adding FlashPhase to Large Aperture Systems of 12 inches or more greatly reduces the cost compared to adding an appropriately sized PMR (Phase Modulating Receptacle). It makes for a cost effective upgrade to Large Aperture Systems that are visual only systems or have been using a Static Fringe Technique.
  3. The "Visual Only" FlashPhase upgrade can be used to upgrade older Zygo systems that were visual only or used ZAPP or the HDP electronics. These systems include the Marks II, III and IV, the PTI and the GPI-LC and GPI-ST interferometers. This cost effective upgrade enable these older systems to produce "numerical results" for the first time or, in the case of older processing electronics, much quicker than before.

As FlashPhase is incorporated into Zygo's industry leading MetroPro Software, upgrades from visual only systems now have the added benefit of the powerful analysis software. Most major players use Zygo systems with MetroPro on them. Therefore, there is a benefit in being able to present you results in the MetroPro format to these customers.

Please click here for further details on how Flashphase can help control vibration problems when using a Fizeau Interferometer to measure surfaces and how it compares with traditional phase shifting (article originally published in Photonics Spectra.)

Click here for technical information on Flashphase