Rotating cam for optical systems

Abstract

Abstract A cam (100a) includes a cam disk (101a) having a center (108a) about which the cam disk rotates, an outline and peripheral scattering face (104a) for receiving radiation (117a) from a source and scattering the radiation as scattered radiation (124a). The cam (100a) includes a motor (150a) for rotating the cam disk, wherein the scattered radiation undergoes periodic delay variations determined by the outline of the cam disk. A measuring apparatus (10.1) which utilizes the cam (100a) includes a source (12) for outputting radiation with a short coherence length; a splitter (22) for splitting the radiation into reference radiation and measuring radiation; a radiation directing unit (34) which receives and directs the measuring radiation toward an object (28) and also collects a portion of the measuring radiation scattered off of the object. The cam (100a) receives the reference radiation and scatters a portion of the reference radiation as scattered reference radiation. The measuring apparatus (10.1) includes a detecting unit (42) which detects intensity resulting from part of the measuring radiation which coherently interferes with the scattered reference radiation to provide information about the object.

Inventors

• 👤 Eric A. Swanson
• 👤 Allen D. Pillsbury
• 👤 James G. Fujimoto
• 👤 Carmen A. Puliafito
• 👤 Charles P. Lin
• 👤 Joel S. Schuman
• 👤 David Huang

Bibliographic Details