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Method and apparatus for providing high contrast imaging

  • US 6,650,916 B2
  • Filed: 02/08/2002
  • Issued: 11/18/2003
  • Est. Priority Date: 11/05/1998
  • Status: Expired due to Fees
First Claim
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1. An apparatus for detecting optical characteristics of a sub-surface object located in the region of an object plane, comprising:

  • a light source for providing an illumination beam;

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

    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 illumination pattern that is transmitted through the sub-surface object to 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 projects said low intensity region within the field of view of said image capturing device.

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