A White Light Spectral Interferometric Demodulation Method Based on Frequency Domain Solving and Model Matching

White-light interferometry (WLI) is widely used for thin-film thickness metrology due to its non-destructive and high-speed characteristics. Yet conventional data-processing pipelines struggle to balance accuracy and computational efficiency. We introduce a Collaborative Spectral–Phase optimization (C-SP) algorithm that enables rapid, high-precision thickness evaluation of single-layer opaque films. C-SP adopts a two-stage coarse-to-fine framework: a frequency-domain coarse estimation first narrows the parameter space, followed by adaptive local refinement via an improved stochastic parallel gradient descent. The adaptive search window effectively mitigates local stagnation while concentrating computation on the most probable solution region. Experimental validation on SiO<sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> thin films demonstrates a repeatability below 0.49 nm, a 3σ value under 1.46 nm, and a computation time less than 0.19 s. This method only requires the measurement of the interference spectrum of the film, and the thickness of the film can be calculated. The method combines speed, precision, and broad applicability, providing a practical tool for thin-film structural characterization, process optimization, and in-line fabrication control.

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Publication Details

Journal
IEEE photonics journal
Published
2025-11-14
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/jphot.2025.3632977
Primary Topic
Optical measurement and interference techniques
Type
article
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article

A White Light Spectral Interferometric Demodulation Method Based on Frequency Domain Solving and Model Matching

Yan Tang, Xiaolong Cheng, Jinfeng Jiang, Yanfang Yang et al.
IEEE photonics journal
Optical measurement and interference techniques
article

A White Light Spectral Interferometric Demodulation Method Based on Frequency Domain Solving and Model Matching

Yan Tang, Xiaolong Cheng, Jinfeng Jiang, Yanfang Yang, Wei Liu, Yuliang Long, Xingyu Gong
article en

Abstract

White-light interferometry (WLI) is widely used for thin-film thickness metrology due to its non-destructive and high-speed characteristics. Yet conventional data-processing pipelines struggle to balance accuracy and computational efficiency. We introduce a Collaborative Spectral–Phase optimization (C-SP) algorithm that enables rapid, high-precision thickness evaluation of single-layer opaque films. C-SP adopts a two-stage coarse-to-fine framework: a frequency-domain coarse estimation first narrows the parameter space, followed by adaptive local refinement via an improved stochastic parallel gradient descent. The adaptive search window effectively mitigates local stagnation while concentrating computation on the most probable solution region. Experimental validation on SiO<sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> thin films demonstrates a repeatability below 0.49 nm, a 3σ value under 1.46 nm, and a computation time less than 0.19 s. This method only requires the measurement of the interference spectrum of the film, and the thickness of the film can be calculated. The method combines speed, precision, and broad applicability, providing a practical tool for thin-film structural characterization, process optimization, and in-line fabrication control.

IEEE photonics journalVol. 17(6)
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
Openalex Percentile: Top 65%
Optical measurement and interference techniques
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A White Light Spectral Interferometric Demodulation Method Based on Frequency Domain Solving and Model Matching — Yan Tang, Xiaolong Cheng, et al. · IEEE photonics journal (2025) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS