Measurement and description of microstructures with consideration of material-specific characteristics

Optical measurement techniques offer a high data acquisition rate, a non-co ntact mode, and a high resolution. But there are often large differencies i n the results obtained by optical and tactile sensors if rough surfaces are investigated. In this paper we demonstrate that confocal microscopy and wh ite-light interferometry offer high resolution measurements on engineering surfaces and we show that the results are comparable to standard tactile se nsors. The sensors are presented as well as results obtained on engineering surfaces. Material aspects are analysed by additional ellipsometric measur ements.