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The design and testing of different optical heads were performed to evaluate the pitch deviation of a diffrac-tion scale grating with a small diffraction angle. Based on the proposed pitch deviation evaluation method employing optical angle sensors based on laser au-tocollimation, a modified optical head with position -sensitive detectors (PSDs) is first designed and con-structed by following the conventional optical config-uration. Owing to the small angle of diffraction of the first-order diffracted beams, the modified optical head has a large working distance, resulting in poor sensor stability. Therefore, a novel and compact optical head employing a pair of small prisms is designed and de-veloped to shorten the working distance of the opti-cal head. An additional modification was also made to the developed compact optical head in such a way that collimator objectives (COs) in the laser autocollima-tion units are removed to improve the sensor sensitiv-ity. Experimental comparisons were conducted using the three types of optical heads to verify the feasibility of the developed optical angle sensor with PSDs., QC 20221024

This paper proposes a new optical configuration for a two-axis surface encoder that can measure the in-plane (X-axis) and out-of-plane (Z-axis) displacements of a positioning stage. The two-axis surface encoder is composed of a scale grating and a sensor head. A transparent grating is employed in the sensor head for measurement of the Z-directional displacement of the scale grating based on the Fizeau-type measurement method; a reference beam reflected from the transparent grating and the zeroth-order diffracted beam from the scale grating are superimposed to generate an interference signal. A pair of prisms and a beam splitter are also employed in the sensor head, so that the positive and negative first-order diffracted beams can be superimposed over a long working distance to generate an interference signal for measurement of the X-directional displacement of the scale grating. Focusing on the new, extended Z-directional measurement mechanism, proof-of-principle experiments were carried out to verify the feasibility of the proposed optical configuration for the surface encoder that can measure the uni-directional displacements of a scale grating along the X- and Z-axis. Experimental results from the developed optical configuration demonstrated the achievement of a Z-directional measuring range of +/- 1.5 mm.

This paper presents an intentional investigation of the effect of the object tilt angle on the tracking local minimum method (TL method), which is the one for detecting the measurement target position of the object optical axis, in a chromatic confocal probe employing a differential dual-fiber-detector optical system with a mode-locked femtosecond laser as the light source. The effect of the object tilt angle on dual-detector confocal probes, and even chromatic confocal probes, has not been investigated in detail so far, although the effect of object tilt angle on scanning confocal probes has been studied. At first, to examine the influence of the object tilt angle on the TL method, a theoretical model is established, and numerical simulations are performed based on the established theoretical equation. Then, the effect of aberrations in confocal optics on the confocal response curve is investigated in experiments. Finally, investigations on the effect of the object tilt angle on the TL method are demonstrated in experiments.

An optical angle sensor based on the collimated mode-locked femtosecond laser (Fs) beam, in which the angle measurement is carried out by observing the second harmonic wave generated by irradiating the Fs beam towards MgO:LiNbO3 crystal, is proposed. The angle detection is demonstrated by identifying the second harmonic generation (SHG) spectrum peaks against the angular position of the rotating stage-mounted MgO:LiNbO3 crystal that represents the measurement object. The MgO:LiNbO3 with a length of 2 mm, a cut-off angle of 47 degrees, a diameter of 5 mm, and 5% of MgO:LN, is rotated within the phase-matching angle over a wavelength range from 1480 nm to 1640 nm. Angle measurement is also carried out by placing the crystal at different positions along the laser beam propagation direction to confirm the feasibility of the angle sensor where the measurement range, measurement sensitivity, and resolution of the proposed method are also evaluated. The result shows that the proposed angle sensor can overcome the working distance limitation of conventional angle sensors and has no specific material target requirement. Since the configuration of the proposed angle sensor is not limited by the specification of the measurement target, it is expected to have wide potential applications, especially in the manufacturing process and inspection process.

A modified two-axis surface encoder is proposed to separately measure both the in-plane displacement and the Z-directional out-of-plane displacement with minor crosstalk errors. The surface encoder is composed of a scale grating and a small-sized sensor head. In the modified surface encoder, the measurement laser beam from the sensor head is designed to be projected onto the scale grating at a right angle. For measurement of the X- and Y-directional in-plane scale displacement, the positive and negative first-order diffracted beams from the scale grating are superimposed on each other in the sensor head, producing interference signals. On the other hand, the Z-directional out-of-plane scale displacement is measured based on the principle of a Michelson-type interferometer. To avoid the influence of reflection from the middle area of the transparent grating, which causes periodic crosstalk errors in the previous research, a specially fabricated transparent grating with a hole in the middle is employed in the newly designed optical system. A prototype sensor head is constructed, and basic performances of the modified surface encoder are tested by experiments.

© 2019 IEEE. Large-area lithium-drifted silicon (Si(Li)) detectors, operable 150°C above liquid nitrogen temperature, have been developed for the General Antiparticle Spectrometer (GAPS) balloon mission and will form the first such system to operate in space. These 10 cm-diameter, 2.5 mm-thick multi-strip detectors have been verified in the lab to provide < 4 keV FWHM energy resolution for X-rays as well as tracking capability for charged particles, while operating in conditions (~-40C and ~1 Pa) achievable on a long-duration balloon mission with a large detector payload. These characteristics enable the GAPS silicon tracker system to identify cosmic antinuclei via a novel technique based on exotic atom formation, de-excitation, and annihilation. Production and large-scale calibration of ~1000 detectors has begun for the first GAPS flight, scheduled for late 2021. The detectors developed for GAPS may also have other applications, for example in heavy nuclei identification.