An optical profilometer apparatus 10 having a stage with a support surface 42 on which a wafer substrate may rest. The wafer stage is capable of moving the wafer in (x, y) or (r, .theta.) mode to achieve complete wafer scan. Polarized light from a monochromatic source 12 is directed towards the wafer surface 22. Surface profiling is achieved by sensing beam shift on a segmented sensor caused by level/height change at the wafer surface. In preferred embodiment of the profilometer, a single light beam is engineered to propagate in two orthogonal planes of incidence so that it becomes sensitive to height/level change on the wafer while being insensitive to local slope or wafer tilt. In another embodiment, slope of surface feature is measured. By integrating slope over the measurement spot, local feature height is obtained. This is particularly useful when the beam shift due to feature height change is below detection sensitivity. Since the beam propagates in two orthogonal planes of incidence, the slope measurement sensitivity and hence height sensitivity is doubled. The entire wafer surface can be profiled using (x, y) or (r, .theta.) scan of the wafer surface.