Current Trends in Development of Optical Metrology

This review offers the reader some of the achievements of modern optical metrology. Over the past decades, it has become possible to make a leap in the basic approaches of metrology from the nano to the femto, approaching the pico level of measurements. Control of nano (micro) particle motion by an optical field and their use for testing complex optical fields; ultra-precise determination of the optical parameters of both solid and liquid and gas-like substances by optical methods; the tiny metrology of the phase shift of orthogonally polarized beams and the determination of their degree of mutual coherence, by interference methods and many other, are proposed for consideration in this paper. Optical metrology, which is provided by three-dimensional polarization distributions of optical fields, where structured light plays a special role; by using femtosecond lasers, and much more, demonstrates the prospects of optical methods in modern measuring systems.