Roughness measurement of metallic surfaces based on the laser speckle contrast method
Document Type Article
Optics and lasers in Engineering
Abstract
A method of measuring surface roughness of flat lapped, ground and polished metallic surfaces, by the far-field speckle contrast method is presented in this paper. The laser speckle contrast technique depends on the existence of an approximately linear relationship between the speckle contrast and the roughness of the illuminated surface. Initially it was shown that the linear relationship existed up to 0.1 μm Ra (centre-line average) roughness using Helium–Neon light, after which a saturation effect was observed. The effect of varying the incident angle of illumination was investigated with a view to extending the measurement range. The use of high incident angles of illumination has been found to increase the range of surface roughness measurement up to 0.4 μm.