I think you can use the sensor part from total station. I don't how accurate it is. But last year I have a project with TDC 7200 ic from texas instrument It has a minimum time less10^(-12) seconds. With this timer you can make a laser sensor with milli meter range
If it rather long (meters, tens of meters) , to achieve tens of um error you may use 3-mm FMCW radar (you can get quite a bit below lambda on the error).
Although, I agree optical interferometer is default solution.
One should also note that TOF Lidars allow submillimetre presion e.g. https://www.onsemi.cn/pub/Collateral/AND9773-D.PDF
One of the possible solutions for this not enough defined measurement problem, is to consider laser triangulation displacement sensor, for example, try with Microepsilon as solution.