USB Digital Microscope Endoscope Camera – An Effective Tool for Quick Morphological Characterization of Laser‐induced Microstructures

Abstract

In this work, the authors have reported the investigation on the use of USB camera for morphological characterization to optimize the processing parameters in laser microstructuring of Si surface. For this, microstructures are generated on a monocrystalline silicon (Si) surface using nitrogen nanosecond laser. The wavelength, pulse energy, and pulse duration of the laser are of 337 nm, 170 µJ, and ∼3.5 ns, respectively. The USB Digital Microscope Endoscope (UDME) Camera is used to capture the images of microstructures generated on the Si surface. It is a compact, portable, easy to handle, and inexpensive camera calibrated by ImageJ software. It has been used for two purposes, first, for conforming whether the microstructures are formed on the surface of Si or not in given laser processing parameters and determining the dimensions of the laser textured region. The second information is used for deciding the overlapping condition. This overlapping is mostly essential for growth of microstructures in large area surface of Si through raster scanning mode. Field emission scanning electron microscopy is done to cross verify the results obtained in UDME Camera.