Norihiro UMEDA, Bunji YASUMURA and Atsuo TAKAYANAGI

Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Faculty of Technology, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, 2-24-16, Nakamachi, Koganei, Tokyo, 184 Japan

(Accepted July 1, 1994)

In this paper, we describe the absolute positioning of a probe tip in a scanning Wiener fringe optical microscope (SWOM) using a synthetic wavelength method. Two laser beams with different wavelengths are superimposed and are incident on a sample surface. A synthetic fringe which has a longer period than that of the Wiener fringe obtained with a single wavelength is formed on the surface. The order of Wiener fringe which is utilized as a feedback signal in the microscope can be determined by the synthetic fringe. A sample with known structure was observed for various defined fringe orders using the SWOM.

Key words : scanning probe microscope, fiber tip, positioning, synthetic wavelength