Fast one-dimensional profilometer with a compact disc pickup

The use of compact disc (CD) pickups in optical profilometry is a well-esta blished practice. The instruments currently available on the market are, ho wever, expensive both to purchase and to maintain. This expense is mainly d ue to the high cost of the scanning system, and it makes the use of low-cos t pickups fruitless. Moreover, translation stages are bulky, slow, and in m ost applications neither necessary nor desirable. We present a one-dimensio nal profilometer, which uses a CD pickup as both the sensor and the actuato r. Beam scanning of the sample is in fact performed by the objective lens t racking motor. The device is cheap, fast, compact, light, and a valuable so lution for fluid and hard-to-access surface profiling. (C) 2001 Optical Soc iety of America OCIS codes: 120.6660, 120.3930.