Laser differential confocal radius measurement.

A new laser differential confocal radius measurement (DCRM) is proposed for high precision measurement of radius. Based on the property of an axial intensity curve that the absolute zero precisely corresponds to the focus of the objective in a differential confocal system (DCS), DCRM uses the zero point of the DCS axial intensity curve to precisely identify the cat's-eye and confocal positions of the test lens, and measures the accurate distance between the two positions to achieve the high-precision measurement of radius of curvature (ROC). In comparison with the existing measurement methods, DCRM proposed has a high measurement precision, a strong environmental anti-interference capability and a low cost. The theoretical analyses and preliminary experimental results indicate that DCRM has a relative measurement error of better than 5 ppm.