Abstract
We have developed knife-edge interferometry (KEI) for various engineering applications, including displacement measuring sensors for dynamic system controls and edge quality of the parts, such as cutting tools, corrosive blades, and photomask patterns. This paper reviewed the modeling, design, and data analysis of KEI. With the expanding market of manufacturing industries, edge topography and instrumentation technology become more and more vital to industrial manufacturing-related applications such as cutting tool wear inspection, photomask edge roughness determination, and edge corrosion propagation monitoring. Due to the limitation of measurement requirements like non-contact (photomask inspection), in-situ (cutting tool inspection), and real-time (corrosion propagation monitoring), there are only a few methods available in the market above, and those methods are based on post-processing. The KEI is capable of on-machine measurements, especially for the nanopositioning systems, providing a large working range and positioning accuracy compared with the conventional displacement sensor. This review addresses the current and future KEI technology. Here, including the theoretical approaches to KEI, this review details the data analysis method to feature the edge topographical information.
