Full-field vibration profilometry using time-averaged interference microscopy aided by variational analysis

Full-field vibration testing is indispensable in characterization of micro-electro-mechanical components. Time-averaged interference (TAI) microscopy is a very capable and accurate vibration profilometry technique. It employs natural all-optical multiplexing of required information, i.e., recorded interferogram is amplitude-modulated by the Bessel pattern, which in turn encodes spatial distribution of vibration amplitude in its underlying phase function. We propose a complete end-to-end numerical scheme for efficient and robust vibration amplitude map demodulation based on the variational data-analysis paradigm. First, interferogram is variationally pre-filtered and complex analytic-interferogram is generated, exploiting the Hilbert spiral transform. The amplitude term of analytic-interferogram is accessed for Besselogram, i.e., TAI amplitude modulation distribution. Next, the Besselogram is variationally pre-filtered and complex analytic-Besselogram is calculated applying the Hilbert spiral transform. Finally, the phase term of the analytic-Besselogram is determined, unwrapped and post-filtered to achieve spatial distribution of vibration amplitude. Proposed approach is verified using simulated interferograms and corroborated upon experimental vibration testing. Reported method compares favorably with the reference Hilbert-Huang transform-based method. The improvement was gained by adding two new steps to the calculation path: (1) additional removal of the interferogram's residual background and noise and (2) variational based vibration amplitude map error correction method.