Error reduction in measurement of samples of materials

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having encoded therein programming code executable by one or more processors to perform or control performance of operations comprising:

• obtaining, from a spectrometer, a first distance measurement between a first probe and a first surface of a sample at a first time mark, the first probe communicatively coupled to the spectrometer;
• obtaining, from the spectrometer, a second distance measurement between a second probe and a second surface of the sample at a second time mark that is chronologically after the first time mark, the second distance measurement including velocity and acceleration of the sample at the second time mark relative to the second probe communicatively coupled to the spectrometer;
• obtaining, from the spectrometer, a third distance measurement between the first probe and the first surface of the sample at a third time mark that is chronologically after both of the first time mark and the second time mark, the third distance measurement including velocity and acceleration of the sample at the third time mark relative to the first probe;
• determining a fourth distance measurement between the first probe and the first surface of the sample at the second time mark by averaging the first distance measurement and the third distance measurement, the fourth distance measurement including velocity and acceleration of the sample at the second time mark relative to the first probe;
• determining a thickness of the sample by subtracting the sum of the fourth distance measurement and the second distance measurement from a probe separation distance, the probe separation distance a predetermined distance between the first probe and the second probe, and the thickness of the sample including an error term due to vibration of the sample;
• and
• discounting the error term from the thickness of the sample to improve estimation accuracy of the thickness of the sample.

A system comprising:

• a spectrometer;
• and
• one or more processors configured to perform or control performance of operations comprising:
• obtaining, from the spectrometer, a first distance measurement between a first probe and a first surface of a sample at a first time mark, the first probe communicatively coupled to the spectrometer;
• obtaining, from the spectrometer, a second distance measurement between a second probe and a second surface of the sample at a second time mark that is chronologically after the first time mark, the second distance measurement including velocity and acceleration of the sample at the second time mark relative to the second probe communicatively coupled to the spectrometer;
• obtaining, from the spectrometer, a third distance measurement between the first probe and the first surface of the sample at a third time mark that is chronologically after both of the first time mark and the second time mark, the third distance measurement including velocity and acceleration of the sample at the third time mark relative to the first probe;
• determining a fourth distance measurement between the first probe and the first surface of the sample at the second time mark by averaging the first distance measurement and the third distance measurement, the fourth distance measurement including velocity and acceleration of the sample at the second time mark relative to the first probe;
• determining a thickness of the sample by subtracting the sum of the fourth distance measurement and the second distance measurement from a probe separation distance, the probe separation distance a predetermined distance between the first probe and the second probe, and the thickness of the sample including an error term due to vibration of the sample;
• and
• discounting the error term from the thickness of the sample to improve estimation accuracy of the thickness of the sample.