(Nikon Instruments Inc.: Melville, NY) -- Nikon Instruments Inc. has introduced the BW-H501 high-speed 3-D surface profile system, offering rapid high-precision 3-D surface inspection. The BW-H501 system features real-time height observation with high-precision height measurement, making analysis and evaluation of object surface roughness possible. Additionally, a heated stage allows observation and analysis of the deformation process of film and gel samples in real time.

“Observation and analysis of optically diffusive surfaces is a weakness of conventional optical systems, but it presents little difficulty for the BW-H501,” says Mike Metzger, general manager of industrial microscopy and metrology. “The BW-H501’s unique combination of a high-speed camera system with newly developed fringe-cycle-method software makes surface profiling possible in as little as 200 ms for a height of 40 µm.”

Using the fringe-cycle method, the coordinate value on the Z-axis with the maximum local focus measure is taken as the height of each pixel, generating an interference fringe on the surface of the object with a two-beam interference objective lens. This allows the BW-H501 to achieve effective height resolution of 100 nm and repeatable precision of σ = 10 nm. 

Additionally, the BW-H501’s X-Cycle Imager makes image capture of 900 fps possible, with output and display of real-time height images at 5 fps. Equipped with Nikon’s BridgeElements software, multiple images can be processed simultaneously, allowing real-time image comparison.