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US 8,797,547 B2Granted
Apparatus and method for measuring deformation of a cantilever using interferometry
AssigneeUCL Business PLC
InventorsGabriel Aeppli, Benjamin Dueck
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Apparatus and method for measuring the deformation of a tethered or untethered cantilever by projecting a radiation beam onto the cantilever, detecting an interference pattern reflected from or transmitted through the cantilever, and calculating the deformation of the cantilever by measuring the intensity variation within at least a portion of the interference pattern.
Claims22
An apparatus for measuring deformation of a deformable portion of a tethered or untethered cantilever, comprising:
- a projection system for projecting a radiation beam onto a cantilever;
- and
- a measurement system for detecting radiation transmitted through or reflected from said cantilever, wherein
- said projection system is arranged such that the radiation diffracted by transmission through or reflection from the deformable portion of said cantilever forms an interference pattern without an additional reference beam reflected from or transmitted through a reference surface;
- said measurement system is configured to measure the spatial variation in intensity within at least a portion of said interference pattern;
- and
- said apparatus further comprises a deformation calculating system for calculating a deformation of said cantilever from the spatial variation in intensity measured by said measurement system, wherein the deformation calculated from said spatial variation in intensity consists of a change in shape of the deformable portion of the cantilever through or from which the radiation forming said interference pattern is transmitted or reflected.
4 more elements
A method of measuring deformation of a deformable portion of a tethered or untethered cantilever, comprising:
- projecting a radiation beam onto a cantilever;
- and
- detecting radiation diffracted by transmission through or reflection from said cantilever, wherein:
- said radiation beam is projected onto said cantilever in such a way as to form an interference pattern in said transmitted or reflected radiation without an additional reference beam reflected from or transmitted through a reference surface;
- and said method further comprises:
- measuring the spatial variation in intensity within at least a portion of said interference pattern;
- and
- calculating a deformation of said cantilever from the measured spatial variation in intensity, wherein the deformation calculated from said spatial variation in intensity consists of a change in shape of the deformable portion of the cantilever through or from which the radiation forming said interference pattern is transmitted or reflected.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.