Duty-Cycle Electronically Tunable Triangular/Square Wave Generator Using LT1228 Commercially Available ICs for Capacitive Sensor Interfacing

This paper proposes a duty-cycle electronically tunable triangular/square wave generator using LT1228 commercially available ICs for capacitive sensor interfacing. The generator comprises two LT1228s, a grounded resistor, and a grounded capacitor. The circuit provides two output signals which are triangular and square waves. Both signals are regulated by adjusting the current bias. Likewise, the amplitude of the triangular signal can be tuned electronically without affecting the frequency. In addition, the square wave can independently control the linear duty cycle via tuning the voltage. Experiment results confirm the performance of the proposed circuit that the amplitude of the triangular wave, frequency, and duty cycle are linearly controllable via current or voltage, which do not affect each other. The duty cycle, the amplitude of the triangular wave, and frequency have maximum errors of ±1.60%, ±3.33%, and ±2.55%, respectively

Utilization of the cyclic interferometer in polarization phase-shifting technique to determine the thickness of transparent thin-films

An alternative polarization phase-shifting technique is proposed to determine the thickness of transparent thin-films. In this study, the cyclic interferometric configuration is chosen to maintain the stability of the operation against external vibrations. The incident light is simply split by a non-polarizing beam splitter cube to generate test and reference beams, which are subsequently polarized by a polarizing beam splitter. Both linearly polarized beams are orthogonal and counter-propagating within the interferometer. A wave plate is inserted into the common paths to introduce an intrinsic phase difference between the orthogonal polarized beams. A transparent thin-film sample, placed in one of the beam tracks, modifies the output signal in terms of the phase retardation in comparison with the reference beam. The proposed phase-shifting technique uses a moving mirror with a set of “fixed” polarizing elements, namely, a quarter-wave retarder and a polarizer, to facilitate phase extraction without rotating any polarizing devices. The measured thicknesses are compared with the measurements of the same films acquired using standard equipment such as the field-emission scanning electron microscope and spectroscopic ellipsometer. Experimental results with the corresponding measured values are in good agreement with commercial measurements. The system can be reliably utilized for non-destructive thickness measurements of transparent thin-films

Real-Time Double-Layer Thin Film Thickness Measurements Using Modified Sagnac Interferometer with Polarization Phase Shifting Approach

This paper describes a modified Sagnac interferometer with a self-referenced polarization and phase-shifting technique for real-time thickness measurement of single- and double-layer transparent thin films. The proposed interferometric setup generated outstanding rotating linearly polarized light with a degree of polarization (DOP) of 99.40%. A beam splitter placed at the interferometer output separated the beam into two identical linearly polarized beams. One of the beams served as a reference, while the other served as a sensing arm. The output linear polarizer set at 45° relative to a reference plane was positioned anterior to the photodetectors to get rotating light intensities for phase shift measurement; hence, the intensities at various polarizations of 0°, 45°, and 90° were automatically acquired without any polarizing device adjustments. These intensities were then transformed into a phase retardation introduced by a sample, and the resulting phase shift was eventually converted into film thickness. The samples were properly prepared, with pure BK7 substrate being deposited by WO3-, Ta2O5-, and WO3/Ta2O5 films of known thicknesses. The thickness measurement obtained from the proposed system yielded reading errors of 1.3%, 0.2%, and 1.3/2.5% for WO3-, Ta2O5-, and WO3/Ta2O5 films, respectively. The mathematical theory was effectively demonstrated and empirically confirmed. The experimental results show that the proposed setup has a lot of potential for real-time, non-destructive thickness assessment of transparent thin films without the need to modify polarizing device orientations