Made to measure

The use of non-contact displacement technologies in the field of precision measurement is growing rapidly. The main reasons for this are that customers need to measure much more accurately— to sub-micron or even nanometer resolutions — and to measure against difficult surfaces or surfaces that cannot be touched during the measurement process. These include silicon, glass, plastics, miniature electronic components, medical components and even food-based surfaces.

This rapid growth has pushed the development of new technologies and the adaptation of existing technologies to meet the new measurement requirements and improve measurement accuracies and resolutions.

So it is more important than ever to understand the strengths and limitations of each non-contact measurement principle when selecting the correct sensor technology for the task.

In practice, besides eddy current and laser triangulation sensors, capacitive and confocal sensors are proving popular with customers. But non-contact displacement sensors come in a variety of shapes, sizes and measurement principles.