Improving the surface metrology

accuracy of optical profilers by using

multiple measurements

Xudong Xu
Qiushi Huang
Zhengxiang Shen
Zhanshan Wang

Xudong Xu, Qiushi Huang, Zhengxiang Shen, Zhanshan Wang, “Improving the surface metrology accuracy
of optical profilers by using multiple measurements,” Opt. Eng. 55(10), 104105 (2016),
doi: 10.1117/1.OE.55.10.104105.

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 Optical Engineering 55(10), 104105 (October 2016)

Improving the surface metrology accuracy of optical

profilers by using multiple measurements
Xudong Xu,a,b Qiushi Huang,a,b Zhengxiang Shen,a,b and Zhanshan Wanga,b,*
a
Tongji University, Key Laboratory of Advanced Micro-Structured Materials, Ministry of Education, Shanghai 200092, China
b
Tongji University, Institute of Precision Optical Engineering, School of Physics Science and Engineering, Shanghai 200092, China

Abstract. The performance of high-resolution optical systems is affected by small angle scattering at the mid-
spatial-frequency irregularities of the optical surface. Characterizing these irregularities is, therefore, important.
However, surface measurements obtained with optical profilers are influenced by additive white noise, as indi-
cated by the heavy-tail effect observable on their power spectral density (PSD). A multiple-measurement method
is used to reduce the effects of white noise by averaging individual measurements. The intensity of white noise is
determined using a model based on the theoretical PSD of fractal surface measurements with additive white
noise. The intensity of white noise decreases as the number of times of multiple measurements increases. Using
multiple measurements also increases the highest observed spatial frequency; this increase is derived and cal-
culated. Additionally, the accuracy obtained using multiple measurements is carefully studied, with the analysis
of both the residual reference error after calibration, and the random errors appearing in the range of measured
spatial frequencies. The resulting insights on the effects of white noise in optical profiler measurements and the
methods to mitigate them may prove invaluable to improve the quality of surface metrology with optical profilers.
© 2016 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) [DOI: 10.1117/1.OE.55.10.104105]

Keywords: optical profilers; noise reduction; surface metrology; multiple measurements; power spectral density.
Paper 161136 received Jul. 17, 2016; accepted for publication Sep. 23, 2016; published online Oct. 14, 2016.

1 Introduction reliable when based on PSD measurements of different

High-resolution imaging systems are under increasing
demand in some rapidly evolving areas such as astrophysics,
high-energy physics, and medicine.1–6 However, the resolu-
tion of these systems is limited by scattering from optical
surface errors,7–11 especially small-angle scattering at the
mid-spatial-frequency (MSF) surface irregularities.12,13 The
MSF irregularities may reduce peak intensity, increase
the light spot size, and blur the obtained image.14,15
Optical profilers are used to determine MSF irregularities,
because the spatial frequency measuring range of optical pro-
filers is ∼10−3 to 1 μm−1 , which is the same range of the
typical MSF surface irregularities.16–18
However, practical measurements using optical profilers
are always affected by electrical noise, vibrations, aberration,
and other interfering sources, which result in considerable
image blurring; the effective highest measured spatial fre-
quency is, therefore, always lower than the Nyquist fre-
quency or the spatial frequency of the corresponding optical
diffraction limit. To increase the effective spatial frequency,
gratings and spheres have been used to measure the modu-
lation transfer function and to calibrate the response of opti-
cal profilers.19,20 However, these methods are restricted to
traceable measurement tools, suffer from many calibration
artifacts, and do not include the influence of random errors
in the individual measurements.21
The surface measurements of power spectral density
(PSD) are commonly used to evaluate surface errors at differ-
ent spatial frequencies, and calculate the three-dimensional
scattering.22,23 Extrapolations based on the PSD are more
*Address all correspondence to: Zhanshan Wang, E-mail: wangzs@tongji.edu
.cn
but overlapping spatial frequency ranges—provided that dif-
ferent objectives or instruments are used—if the surface dis-
tribution conforms with fractal theory.24–28 However, we find
that the PSD curves cannot be easily connected in the overlap
frequency region when different objectives are used in the
optical profiler; they are also not easily connectable to the
curves obtained using atomic force microscopy (AFM).29,30
The main reason for these difficulties is the omnipresent
white noise—which can be easily distinguished as a horizon-
tal line in a log–log PSD curve. The presence of white noise
largely reduces the effective highest spatial frequency; the
levels of white noise must, therefore, be reduced.31,32
A commonly used method to reduce the variance of addi-
tive white noise is to average multiple measurements, lever-
aging the statistical independency between different noise
realizations.33,34 Multiple measurements can also be used
with optical profilers; averaging the random fluctuations of
each pixel along multiple measurements can decrease the
noise variance by a factor proportional to the number of aver-
aged measurements in the case of additive white noise.
When using multiple measurements, additional details of
the surface profile can be recognized, which may signify an
increase in the effective highest measured spatial frequency.
This is not enough, however, to fully understand the effect of
multiple measurements; a qualitative study of the intensity of
white noise and the effective highest spatial frequency (and
their mutual influence) is necessary. Moreover, the system-
atic accuracy of the residual reference error after calibration,
and the random errors in the range of the measured spatial
frequencies should be derived.
0091-3286/2016/$25.00 © 2016 SPIE

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 Xu et al.: Improving the surface metrology accuracy of optical profilers by using multiple measurements
In Sec. 2, the basic theory underlying the PSD of white
noise and fractal surfaces will be introduced; based on this
theoretical framework, the problem of white noise in mea-
surements obtained with optical profilers is discussed in
detail. In Sec. 3, the multiple-measurement method is intro-
duced and evaluated as an approach to reduce the presence of
white noise. A mathematical model of the multiple-measure-
ment technique is then proposed to calculate the intensity of
the white noise. Finally, in Sec. 4, the highest spatial fre-
quency obtainable when using multiple measurements is
carefully calculated, based on the model. The systematic
accuracy of the residual reference error after calibration,
and the random errors in the measuring spatial frequency
range are also carefully studied.
2 Theoretical Framework
2.1 Surface Characterization Using the Power
Spectral Density
The surface figure and roughness can be specified in terms of
statistical quantities such as root-mean-square (rms) height
fluctuation and residual slope variation. However, to estimate
beamline system parameters, the surface errors should be
determined considering their spatial frequency bandwidth;
evaluation of the PSD of surface errors is, therefore, the pre-
ferred method. The PSD of optical and engineering compo-
nents’ surfaces is a spectral description of the surface height
measurements obtained from the surface topography. In
practice, the PSD at the required frequency range can be
extrapolated by fitting a more or less simple analytical
model to the spectra measured with bandwidth-limited
instruments, such as the inverse-power-law PSD based on
fractal theory.35 The extrapolated PSD spectrum can then
be used to simulate metrology data for x-ray optics before
fabrication and predict the performance of the optical sys-
tem. When the PSD is obtained by multiple instruments
or objectives of different but overlapping spatial frequency
ranges, the obtained data become more reliable.
According to fractal surface theory,35 the one-dimensional
PSD follows an inverse-power-law Af−γ function, with
power parameter γ between 1 and 3. The measured PSD
spectra were typically found to be well approximated by an
inverse-power-law function with γ ≈ 2, especially for step
phase elements of the appropriate height. Moreover, the
power parameter γ of many high-quality x-ray optics can be
close to one. The expected surface height distribution can be
accurately predicted by the surface PSD, obtained in the
medium-spatial-frequency range (approximately between
10−3 and 1 μm−1 ) with optical profilers, and in the high-
spatial-frequency range (between 1 and 102 μm−1 ) with
AFM.29,36 According to the inverse-power-law, the PSD of
a sequence with scale invariance (or fractal nature) is a straight
line in a log–log plot, the absolute value of the line slope hav-
ing a positive relation with the power parameter γ.
The term noise refers here to any additive undesirable sig-
nal that disturbs the transmission and decreases the resolu-
tion of optical profiler systems. The sources of noise may be
external or internal to the system. External noise includes
man-made noise, atmospheric noise, and other electromag-
netic radiation signals, whereas internal noise includes ther-
mal noise, mechanical noise, and electrical noise.32 However,
independently of the noise source—or, typically, the multiple
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sources—the PSD of white noise has a constant value across
frequency (that constancy being the reason for the term
“white”) and appears (ideally) as a horizontal straight line
in plots whose horizontal coordinate is the tangential spatial
frequency.30,36 The PSD of the white noise (and, therefore,
the noise power, by integrating this density over the band-
width) can be easily obtained by simply fitting a constant
value to its PSD.
To eliminate the leakage effect in the spectral estimate that
results from having only finite-length data, a data window
function is used to smooth the ends of the observation seg-
ment. In this application, avoiding high sidelobe labels
(and, therefore, inaccuracies in the amplitude information
of the PSD) is more important than frequency resolution.
Therefore, a Blackman window is chosen; this window
has a wide main lobe and low sidelobe levels, implying a
slightly diminished frequency resolution, but accurate ampli-
tude information, without disturbing artifacts generated by
sidelobes.35,37 Therefore, in this manuscript, all surface
height sequences are processed with a Blackman window
before being Fourier transformed to obtain the PSD.
2.2 White Noise Effect
The consequences of the presence of additive white noise in
the measurements are easily observable in the PSD of the
measured data. To show this, a sample of Si material was
characterized using an optical profiler based on phase scanning
interferometry (Contour GT-X3 from Bruker™). Figure 1(a)
shows a log–log plot of the PSD of the Si sample surface
obtained with the optical profiler and three different objectives.
Figure 1(b) adds to these PSD curves obtained with AFM (for
three different ranges), and the linear fitting line obtained with
AFM data. Only the x-direction PSD is shown in this manu-
script, because the isotropic surface exhibits identical varia-
tions on all tangential directions of measurement.
As shown in Fig. 1, the different PSD curves obtained
with the optical profiler and the three different objectives
are not good matches to each other in the overlap frequency
regions; they are also unable to connect harmoniously with
the curves obtained by AFM. The reason for these imperfect
matches lies in the heavy tail that each one of these curves
invariably presents, which can be very clearly observed in
Figs. 1(a) and 1(b). If these tail regions are disregarded,
the residual PSD curves become good matches to the straight
line of negative slope predicted by fractal surface theory. As
mentioned in Sec. 2.1, white noise appears in the PSD as a
constant value across frequency (a horizontal line in the PSD
plot). It may, therefore, be inferred (and will be shown to be
the case) that the presence of white noise is the main cause for
the observed tailing effect, which causes a clear leveling of the
PSD values. This effect has a noticeable influence in the mea-
surements, limiting their maximum effective spatial frequency,
and thereby decreasing spatial resolution. The white noise
levels of every single shot should, therefore, be reduced.
3 Multiple Measurements for White Noise
Reduction
3.1 Mathematical Model of Multiple Measurements
As mentioned above, additive white noise can be the main
factor affecting the maximum effective spatial frequency
range. As has been discussed, a common and simple method
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 Xu et al.: Improving the surface metrology accuracy of optical profilers by using multiple measurements
Fig. 1 (a) Log–log plot of the PSD curves of the Si sample surface
obtained with an optical profiler (Contour GT-X3 from Bruker™), for
three different objectives. (b) Log–log plot of the PSD curves of the
Si sample surface obtained with both the optical profiler and AFM
(with three different wavelengths), and linear fit obtained with the
AFM data.
to reduce the variance (or, equivalently, the PSD) of white
noise is to average over multiple measurements. If the
noise realizations in the different measurements are indepen-
dent (a safe assumption), the variance of the mean will be the
variance of the additive white noise σ 2 divided by the number
of averaged measurements. Figure 2 shows the PSD curves
for the average of multiple profile measurements taken at
different times, with a fused silica sample, using the optical
profiler with a 2.5× objective.
Figure 2 shows that the heavy tail at high-frequencies
declines with the increase in the number of averaged profile
measurements. The ratio of PSD decrease at the highest fre-
quency is close to the number of averaged profile measure-
ments, which agrees well with the notion that white noise is
mainly responsible for the surface PSD heavy tail. We can,
therefore, conclude that white noise existed in the measure-
ments and induced the increase in the PSD curves at high
frequency. Furthermore, this experiment shows that white
noise (and, therefore, the heavy tails at high frequency)
can be reduced using the multiple-measurement method.
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Fig. 2 PSD curves for the average of multiple profile measurements
taken at different times; fused silica sample, using the optical profiler
with a 2.5× objective.
To quantitatively confirm that the high-frequency tails
result from the presence of additive white noise, the ratio
of tail reduction must be determined to be strictly equal
to the number of average independent profile measurements,
a verification that requires some experiments and analyses.
The PSD of white noise should be determined first. To do
that, a model consisting of the sum of the PSD of an ideal
fractal surface and a constant term c (the ideal white noise
PSD) is used; its parameters are found by a least squares fit to
the measured global PSD data. The objective function for the
least squares fit is given in the following equation:
X
min FðA; γ; cÞ ¼ fln½PSDðfÞ − lnðAf −γ þ cÞg2 :
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;e001;326;391 (1)
f
The term Af −γ is the one-dimensional inverse-power-law fit
to the PSD spectral distribution, according to the fractal sur-
face theory; the constant term c is the PSD of white noise.
The fit of the model to the measured PSD is made after tak-
ing the logarithm of both functions; otherwise, the efficiency
of the procedure would be severely impacted. The results of
fitting the discussed model to the measured PSD of the fused
silica are shown in Fig. 3, both for the case of a single meas-
urement, and for the average of 30 independent profile mea-
surements, using a 2.5× objective.
Let us denote by K the observed white noise PSD in a
single-surface profile measurement. As mentioned above,
assuming the independence of the observation noise in dif-
ferent profiles, the noise level of the average of T different
profile measurements, cðTÞ, should then respect the simple
equation cðTÞ ¼ K∕T. However, the obtained experimental
data show that the noise level in the PSD densities of
the averaged measurements is always higher than K∕T.
Analyzing the experimental data, a constant additive com-
pensation term η was found; after subtracting this constant
term from the measured noise level, the variance reduction
model becomes a good fit to the measured data. This com-
pensating term will be called “background white noise,”
because of its behavior and effect in the model. With
the introduction of the compensating term η, the overall
white noise in the PSD must now be considered as being
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 Xu et al.: Improving the surface metrology accuracy of optical profilers by using multiple measurements

Table 1 Statistical parameters of multiple measurements; each

multiple measurement was repeated five times.

2.5× objective 10× objective 50× objective

T c̄ (nm3 ) σ c (nm3 ) c̄ (nm3 ) σ c (nm3 ) c̄ (nm3 ) σ c (nm3 )

1 1225.5 32.1 652.0 8.71 148.9 7.72

2 627.8 18.7 325.9 5.66 70.29 3.71

5 258.3 11.8 134.3 3.07 29.8 2.81

10 138.3 7.62 72.04 7.00 14.6 1.24

20 67.11 3.65 36.72 2.56 7.16 0.97

50 29.24 1.60 18.04 2.69 2.72 0.24

100 18.37 0.94 9.95 0.81 1.50 0.14

η 5.58 3.60 0.0093

(different values of T were used) and was performed five

Fig. 3 Fitting the model to the PSD of the fused silica sample, mea-
sured with a 2.5× objective. (a) Single-surface measurement.
(b) Average of 30 profile measurements.
constituted by two components: the “observation noise,”
whose variance will decrease with the increase in the number
of averaged profile measurements in accordance with the
expected 1∕T factor, and the “background noise,” of spectral
power density η, whose additive contribution to the PSD does
not depend on the number of averaged measurements—
and whose source does not, therefore, lie in the individual
measurements themselves. The modified model, therefore,
becomes
times. The statistical parameters of the obtained data are
shown in Table 1.
As mentioned above, the data were obtained from multi-
ple measurements repeated five times. The variables c̄ and σ c
are the average and standard deviation of the values obtained
for c̄ in each of the corresponding five measurements. The
behavior of the resulting residual error [K − ðc − ηÞT] indi-
cates that the model is virtually correct; no trend in this error
is observed when the number of averaged measurements
increases. It is remarkable that the background white noise
density η for the 50× objective is so small that it can be
almost ignored.
The PSD curves for the T ¼ 100 cases are shown in
Fig. 4, for the three different objectives. As can be seen,
the PSD curves of the different objectives are almost coinci-
dent in their overlap area, far closer to each other than in
the single-measurement case shown in Fig. 1(a). However,
the white noise effect is still present in all three curves.

K∕T ¼ cðTÞ − η:
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;e002;63;209 (2)

In this equation, η is the PSD of the background white noise,

and the modified variable K is the single-profile measure-
ment white noise power density with η removed. Accord-
ing to this equation, the background white noise line can
be considered as an asymptote of the white noise.

3.2 Parameter Determination

To accurately obtain the value of η, multiple-surface measure-
ments were performed on fused silica. Each multiple-surface Fig. 4 PSD curves of multiple measurements (T ¼ 100) with three
measurement corresponds to the average of T measurements different objectives.

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 Xu et al.: Improving the surface metrology accuracy of optical profilers by using multiple measurements

Because of this, the tails of the 2.5× and 10× objectives

exhibit discontinuities in their alignment with the other
curves.

4 Lateral Spatial Frequency and Optical Profiler

Accuracy Using Multiple Measurements
4.1 Lateral Spatial Frequency Using Multiple
Measurements
Figure 5 shows the surface topology of a given area—
measured with the optical profiler and the 10× objective—
obtained from multiple measurements with different values
of T (1, 10, and 30). The polishing or grinding traces can be
clearly observed in Fig. 5(c) and are still observable (even
though slightly blurred) in Fig. 5(b). In Fig. 5(a), however,
it is impossible to distinguish any regular traces. The surface
details in the middle and even high spatial frequencies are
clear for T ¼ 30. The lateral spatial frequency range is, there-
fore, enlarged using the average of multiple individual
measurements.
The measured surface signal is necessarily affected by
noise. According to Shannon theory, the highest channel fre-
quency is the one for which the signal-to-noise ratio equals
unity. An approximate method to obtain this highest fre-
quency is, therefore, to calculate the crossover point of
the fit fractal surface PSD line and the horizontal line cor-
responding to the white noise. The highest spatial frequency
using multiple measurements can, therefore, be obtained
with the following equation:

 −1
K∕T þ η γ
f max ¼ : (3)
A
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;e003;63;433

Using the data measured for the used silica sample to fit
an inverse-power-law Af−γ, the following approximate
fractal parameters are obtained for the sample: A ¼ 0.050,
γ ¼ 2.3. To compare the highest spatial frequency intrinsic
to the instrument and the actual maximum spatial frequency
obtained in the white noise contaminated measurements, sev-
eral parameters were extracted for the T ¼ 1 and T ¼ 30
cases, with different objectives: optical resolution, sample
resolution, and the corresponding highest spatial frequency.
The results are listed in Table 2.
According to the profiler’s manual, the inherent resolu-
tions of the 2.5× and 10× objectives are limited by the
Nyquist frequency, whereas the inherent resolution of the
50× objective is limited by the Rayleigh criterion. How-
ever, in actual measurement, the obtained highest spatial Fig. 5 Surface measurements of the same area obtained with the
frequency is far less than the intrinsic parameter of the instru- optical profiler (10× objective lens) for multiple measurements with
different values of T . (a) T ¼ 1, (b) T ¼ 10, and (c) T ¼ 30.
ment, as shown in Table 2. The highest spatial frequency in
the T ¼ 30 case is, however, approximately four times
higher than that of single measurements; that is why the top-
ology shown in Fig. 5(c) shows more surface detail than 4.2 Accuracy of the Optical Profiler Using Multiple
Measurements
Figs. 5(a) and 5(b). The degree of increase of the highest
spatial frequency will be somewhat influenced by the param- To evaluate the accuracy of the optical profiler using multiple
eter γ of the sample being measured. The parameter γ can measurements, both the systematic and random error com-
directly influence the index term in Eq. (3). According to ponents must be considered. The reference surface error is
Eq. (3), the highest spatial frequency increases when the the most influential systematic error in optical profiler mea-
parameter γ increases. surements. A common method to calibrate the reference

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 Xu et al.: Improving the surface metrology accuracy of optical profilers by using multiple measurements
Table 2 Optical resolution, sample resolution, corresponding highest
spatial resolution, and observed highest spatial frequency for the
T ¼ 1 and T ¼ 30 cases.
Objective 2.5× 10×
Optical resolution (μm) 3.80 0.90
Sampling resolution (μm) 3.96 0.977
Corresponding highest spatial 0.126 0.512
frequency (μm−1 )
Highest spatial frequency 0.012 0.016
obtained for T ¼ 1 (μm−1 )
Highest spatial frequency 0.051 0.066
obtained for T ¼ 30 (μm−1 )
surface is to reduce the measured surface by averaging sev-
eral different regions of a standard sample with sufficiently
low roughness. However, residual reference surface errors
may still remain. Random errors are mainly caused by tur-
bulence and vibration, and create differences between every
single-or multiple-performed measurement. A spatial fre-
quency random error (from low to high) may also exist in
the measurements. In this section, both the reference surface
error and the random errors are analyzed to evaluate the accu-
racy achieved by the profiler using multiple measurements.
4.2.1 Reference surface error
The reference surface of the profiler is measured by averag-
ing a SiC standard sample with 30 regions of different posi-
tions and rotation angles. A multiple measurement with
T ¼ 30 is performed in each region. However, there is
still some residual reference error even if the reference sur-
face is calibrated with multiple measurements of a standard
surface. The frequency spectrum of the residual reference
error can be calculated by averaging the deviations between
the results obtained for each region surface, and the average
results for the 30 regions. The averaged PSD of the 30
residual surfaces (using a 2.5× objective) is shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 6 Averaged PSD of the 30 residual surfaces, using a 2.5×
objective.
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50×
0.50
0.196
1.00
0.031
0.137
Fig. 7 Deviation of the PSD curves obtained from the 15 recalibration
measurements, using the 2.5× objective.
The rms value of the residual reference surface can be
obtained with the following equation:
Z  
PSDr ðfÞ − η
rm sr ¼
2 þ η df: (4)
n−1
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;e004;326;502
Integrating the PSD along the spatial frequency, the square of
the rms value can be obtained. The existence of background
white noise of density η is also considered in this equation.
The term n is the number of the measured region. An
unbiased estimator is used here, which justifies the division
by (n − 1). The residual surface error Er obtained with the
2.5× objective was calculated to be 0.042 nm.
4.2.2 Random error
To obtain the random error present in multiple measure-
ments, an area of the fused silica was measured with a T ¼
30 multiple measurement; zero-order fringe and zero fringe
calibrations were performed 15 times. The random error in
the surface measurement can be decomposed by spatial fre-
quency, and therefore, can be obtained by investigating the
deviations at the corresponding spatial frequencies. Figure 7
shows the deviation of the PSD curves obtained from the 15
recalibration measurements, using the 2.5× objective.
The rms value of the random error (Ere ) can also be cal-
culated by integrating the PSD along the spatial frequency as
Eq. (4) derived; a value of 0.045 nm was thus obtained. The
total error Et of the 2.5× objective can be approximately
obtained by calculating the 2-norm of the systematic and ran-
dom error terms, i.e., Et ¼ kEr ; Ere k2 ¼ 0.062 nm. In this
manuscript, only the 2.5× objective is analyzed for accuracy;
error analyses of the other two objectives can be performed
in exactly the same way.
5 Conclusion
The deleterious effects of the presence of white noise in
optical profiler measurements based on phase scanning inter-
ferometry are very apparent when the measured data are
characterized by its PSD; the presence of white noise is
considered to be the main cause of diminished maximum
effective spatial frequency and reduced accuracy in optical
104105-6 October 2016 • Vol. 55(10)
 Xu et al.: Improving the surface metrology accuracy of optical profilers by using multiple measurements
profiler measurements. The use of multiple measurements—
where a number of individual profile measurements are
averaged—is a suitable technique to reduce the PSD of
white noise, leveraging the beneficial impact of the average
operator on the noise variance. The existence of a back-
ground additive white noise term in the PSD was proposed,
leading to an improved mathematical model of the PSD of
optical profiler measurements. This model was found to be
well adjusted to the results obtained from the experiment.
When using multiple measurements, the PSD curves
obtained with different profiler objectives have a good
degree of agreement in the overlapping frequency regions
of the log–log plot of the PSD. On the other hand, this hap-
pens when single measurements are considered, mainly
because of the heavy tails imposed by the presence of white
noise. Multiple measurements also increase the effective
highest spatial frequency and accuracy; both these effects
were carefully derived and worked out. However, the source
of the background white noise is still a problem to be studied.
The problems of horizontal vibration and defocusing cannot
be ignored when addressing the issue of multiple measure-
ments in optical profilers and will be studied in future work.
Acknowledgments
This work was sponsored by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (No. 11443007), NSAF
(No. U1430131), National Science Instrument and
Equipment Development Major Project of Ministry of
Science and Technology of China (Nos. 2012YQ04016403,
2012YQ24026402, and 2012YQ13012505), and the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
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Xudong Xu received his bachelor’s degree in 2010 from Tongji
University. Currently, he is a PhD candidate in the Institute of
Precision Optical Engineering, School of Physics and Engineering,
Tongji University. His research is mainly in the aspect of surface
metrology.
Zhanshan Wang received his bachelor’s degree from Nankai
University in 1985, master’s degree from Changchun Institute of
Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in
1988, and doctor’s degree from Shanghai Institute of Optics and
Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 1996. His
research fields are mainly in extreme ultraviolet (EUV), soft x-ray
and x-ray multilayer optics, and laser coatings.
Biographies for the other authors are not available.
October 2016 • Vol. 55(10)