Surface Profile Analysis
Profilometers are instruments used to measure the roughness of a surface. Also called surface profiling systems, there are contact and non-contact surface profiling systems.
The contact systems use a stylus run along the sample surface and the up-and-down movements of the stylus are measured.
With a non-contact profilometer, the roughness of a surface is measured by the way light is reflected from it.
Applications of Profilometers
Profilometers and surface profiling systems are used in many industries, including:
- Biomedical
- Materials characterization
- Fiber optic
- Pharmaceutical
- Metallurgy
- Machining
- Semiconductor, and more.
Considerations for purchasing a profilometer
When choosing a profilometer, consider which features are important for the tests you will run. The types of materials that can be measured, how small a surface can be tested, if the probes can get into holes and channels that may be built into the surface, how far from the interferometer (the machine that gathers and interprets the data) the probe can be, and if the probes can withstand any extreme environments are all characteristics that can vary from one surface profiling system to another.
Click on the links to discover and compare surface profiling systems from various manufacturers: