High-precision rotation angle measurement method based on a lensless digital holographic microscope

To accurately measure ultrasmall rotation angles, a robust and effective method based on lensless digital holographic microscopy is proposed in this paper. The method combines holographic microscopy, solid geometry, and 3D measurement, including holographic measurement and angle measurement processes. We can calculate the 3D shape by the angular spectrum algorithm and the least-squares phase-unwrapping algorithm in the holographic process. According to the relationship between the surface shape and rotation angles, the real-time rotation angles can be calculated. To validate the feasibility and practicability of the proposed approach, numerical noise simulations and experiments were performed. The measurement precision of rotation angle can reach 0.5″ in the range of 1000″ in this paper’s experiments. The holographic method has high measurement precision and good stability. In addition, the compact small volume has great potential in small-angle sensor applications.