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Method and apparatus for providing high contrast imaging

  • US 6,438,396 B1
  • Filed: 09/22/1999
  • Issued: 08/20/2002
  • Est. Priority Date: 11/05/1998
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. An apparatus for detecting optical characteristics of a sub-surface object located at an object plane, comprising:

  • a light source for providing an illumination beam that propagates along an illumination path defined by said light source and the object;

    an illumination system that transforms said illumination beam into a high contrast illumination pattern having a high intensity region and a low intensity region and projects said illumination pattern onto the sub-surface object substantially outside a desired portion of the sub-surface object to be imaged; and

    an imaging system that includes an image capturing device for detecting an image of the desired portion of the sub-surface object, said image being formed by scattered illumination from said high contrast illumination pattern that is transmitted through the sub-surface object and propagates along an image path to said image capturing device, said image path defined by the object and said image capturing device, wherein said illumination system projects said high intensity region outside a field of view of said image capturing device at the object plane and said illumination system projects said low intensity region within the field of view of said image capturing device.

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