Opto-digital microscopy provides the ideal solution for surface inspection and metrology within manufacturing, bringing industrial microscopy into the digital era. Surface topology is an important property, with different applications each demanding a defined level of surface roughness. While roughness dictates the interaction between two surfaces, irregularities also hold the potential to form nucleation sites for cracks or corrosion.

Surface roughness is traditionally measured using contact profilometry, but this suffers from several drawbacks. 3D confocal laser scanning microscopy instead offers many advantages associated with non-contact and non-destructive testing. Firstly, whilst the resolution of contact profilometry is limited by the stylus tip diameter (a radius of 2 μm), the laser of the Olympus LEXT OLS4100 3D laser scanning microscope can measure down to a radius of only 0.2 μm. Furthermore, the diamond tip of a stylus dragging over the surface can scratch and damage softer materials, and may itself become damaged from pulling loose of adhesive samples, skewing results. As such, optical profilometry is becoming increasingly popular within industry, especially now that the Olympus LEXT conforms to the first ever Geometrical Product Specification standard for 3D surface metrology, ISO25178. This microscope system is the latest addition to the Olympus opto-digital range. With the capabilities of modern microscopy techniques, these systems are controlled and displayed through a digital imaging interface to achieve a simplicity that is intuitive to any operator, regardless of experience. Accurate inspection and measurement no longer depends on in-depth microscopy knowledge, due to several innovative features in both the system and software design.

Join us for the webinar "Benefits of opto-digital microscopes for industrial inspection", taking place on 24 October at 4pm CET, where Miriam Schwentker of Olympus will be exploring how the benefits of opto-digital microscopy is transforming surface inspection and metrology within industrial quality control. If you like to dive into more details, we recommend the white paper provided by Olympus on the topic.

Registration is already open, register here.