Development of an optical surface characterization sensor for simultaneously measuring both 3-D surface texture and mechanical properties

Current surface characterization technologies are generally sorted into two categories: non-contact and contact-based technologies. Among these technologies, no one can stand out to simultaneously and rapidly measure both surface patterns/textures and mechanical properties such as softness, friction, and mechanical impedance. Our work addresses this problem, through combination of both contact and non-contact optical surface profiling mechanisms, the developed new optical Total Internal Reflection (TIR) based surface texture sensor can be efficiently used for quantitative characterization of surface texture properties including 3-D texture pattern, roughness, and even mechanical properties like softness, etc. We have used this sensor to measure and analyze texture properties of extensive sample surfaces of soft materials. The results demonstrate the high performance of the sensor.