一种用于线膨胀系数测量的高稳定性激光干涉系统

介绍了一种可以对材料长度变化进行测量的高稳定性双光程激光干涉系统,由于该干涉系统的测量光路和参考光路具有相似的传播路径,光程差仅由被测试样的长度引起,干涉系统具有较强的抵抗环境温度变化和振动等外界干扰的能力。通过平晶反射膜测量试验,对干涉系统的稳定性进行了验证,结果表明在6. 5 h内测量数据的标准偏差为4. 2 nm。该激光干涉系统可用于材料尺寸变化(如线膨胀系数)的高准确度测量。     

Modified white-light Mach-Zehnder interferometer for direct group-delay measurements

A modified white-light Mach-Zehnder interferometer based on a single beam splitter is described for direct group-delay measurements. The arms of the interferometer are folded in such a manner that a single beam splitter can be used to split the incoming beam and combine the outgoing beams. This method offers a twofold advantage: The measuring range of the interferometer is twice as large as that of the Michelson interferometer, and the systematic error that is associated with the beam splitter is minimized because of the configuration. We report the results of measurements on various optical components performed in the 555-630-nm spectral region and propose a scheme for the processing of the experimental data. We present a comparison of the data analyzed by the proposed processing scheme along with the theoretical calculations.     

绝对测量小距离的波长扫描-光纤双干涉仪系统

介绍了用于测量小位移的波长扫描－光纤法布里－珀罗干涉仪系统。用扫描波长作为“中介”,比较参考腔长和传感腔长,可以“准绝对”地测量传感腔的长度。这个测量与波长扫描的准确度无关,仅依赖于参考腔的长度,而通过将传感腔改变一个已知距离,就可以简单地“自标定”参考腔的长度。     

Michelson interferometer for precision angle measurement

An angle-measuring technique based on an optical interferometer is reported. The technique exploits a Michelson interferometric configuration in which a right-angle prism and a glass strip are introduced into a probe beam. Simultaneous rotation of both components along an axis results in an optical path difference between the reference and the probe beams. In a second arrangement two right-angle prisms and glass strips are introduced into two beams of a Michelson interferometer. The prisms and the strips are rotated simultaneously to introduce an optical path difference between the two beams. In our arrangement, optimization of various parameters makes the net optical path difference between the two beams approximately linear for a rotation as great as +/-20 degrees . Results are simulated that show an improvement of 2-3 orders of magnitude in error and nonlinearity compared with a previously reported technique.     

Simultaneous determination of the refractive index and wedge angle of an optical wedge plate using a photorefractive holographic interferometer

Abstract

A simple and effective method for simultaneously determining the refractive index and the wedge angle of an optical wedge plate is described. The method is based on a real-time holographic interferometer which uses a photorefractive crystal as the recording and reconstruction medium. The wedge sample under test is inserted into a rectangular cell that is placed in the object light beam of the holographic interferometer. The interference patterns produced before and after a reference liquid is poured into the cell are received by a CCD camera and stored in a computer, respectively. The refractive index and the wedge angle of the wedge sample are determined by measuring the number of fringes falling inside a fixed aperture. The principle of the method is analysed and some experimental results with adequate accuracy are given.     

Interferometric sensor for detection of surface-bound bioreactions

An integrated optical interferometer for direct detection of affinity reactions is presented. A modern version of a Young's interferometer is built with a waveguide structure as beam splitter and as sensing element. Resistive waveguides were produced by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition of silicon oxinitride. At the output of this device a fringe pattern is detected by a CCD line camera. The adsorption of molecules on top of the waveguides is observed with a detection limit of 750 fg/mm(2). The resolvable variation of effective refractive index is 9 x 10(-8).     

Experiments with active phase matching of parallel-amplified Multiline HF laser beams by a phase-locked Mach-Zehnder interferometer

Active phase matching of multiline HF laser beams by means of a phase-locked Mach-Zehnder interferometer was demonstrated by locking the interferometer to the central interference fringe at zero optical path length difference. The central fringe could be found by varying the spectral content of the input beam. Laser amplification in one leg of the interferometer decreased fringe visibility without adversely affecting locking. Single-line fringe patterns produced by an array spectrometer (while the interferometer was operated in its scanning mode) were analyzed to show that no significant dispersion occurred in the amplifier. The techniques developed have potential for measuring dispersion mismatch between larger parallel amplifiers. These experiments demonstrated in principle that a number of multiline HF amplified beams can be recombined and phase-matched to produce a high beam quality output beam.     

平衡式干涉仪的光学系统设计

介绍了两种平衡式干涉仪的光学系统设计方法,分别给出了用于单端测量和双端测量的具体设计方案.由于采用的平衡式光学系统中测量光束和参考光束具有近似相等的光程长度和相似的路径,其光程差仅由被测件的长度或被测表面与测量参考镜之间的距离而引起,因此干涉仪具有很高的稳定性.用双端测量双光程平衡式干涉仪对准零长度试样进行测量,在185 h测量中所得数据的标准偏差为2.1 nm.     

Alignment of an interferometric gravitational wave detector

Interferometric gravitational wave detectors are designed to detect small perturbations in the relative lengths of their kilometer-scale arms that are induced by passing gravitational radiation. An analysis of the effects of imperfect optical alignment on the strain sensitivity of such an interferometer shows that to achieve maximum strain sensitivity at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory requires that the angular orientations of the optics be within 10(-8) rad rms of the optical axis, and the beam must be kept centered on the mirrors within 1 mm. In addition, fluctuations in the input laser beam direction must be less than 1.5 x 10(-14) rad/ radicalHz in angle and less than 2.8 x 10(-10) m/ radicalHz in transverse displacement for frequencies f > 150 Hz in order that they not produce spurious noise in the gravitational wave readout channel. We show that seismic disturbances limit the use of local reference frames for angular alignment at a level approximately an order of magnitude worse than required. A wave-front sensing scheme that uses the input laser beam as the reference axis is presented that successfully discriminates among all angular degrees of freedom and permits the implementation of a closed-loop servo control to suppress the environmentally driven angular fluctuations sufficiently.     

自消除环境扰动的干涉型波长漂移测量

介绍了一种新颖的干涉波和探测方法,该方法可用于光学传感系统中测量波长的漂移。在本文法中,采用了另一已知波长的参江与被测光波长的光一起注入探测系统中,其中参考波长用于稳定干涉仪的光程差,以保证波长探测系统对环境扰动（如温度波动、机械振动）的不敏感。初步实验表明,使用本可将系统的信噪比提高２５ｄＢ。     

Common-path interferometer for frequency-domain optical coherence tomography

A Michelson-type spectral interferometer that uses a common beam path for the reference and the sample arms is described. This optical arrangement is more compact and stable than the more commonly used dual-arm interferometer and is well suited for frequency-domain optical coherence tomography of biological samples. With a 16-bit CCD camera, the instrument has sufficient dynamic range and resolution for imaging to depths of 2 mm in scattering biological materials. Images obtained with this spectral interferometer are presented, including cross-sectional images in a Xenopus laevis tadpole.     

Optical heterodyne detection of pulsed ultrasonic pressures

An optical heterodyne interferometer was used for measuring short ultrasonic pulses in fluids. The optical phase shift of the probe beam, proportional to the acoustic pressure integrated along the light path, was demodulated quantitatively by electronic processing. The detection sensitivities of 10(-3) (Pa/ radicalHz) in water and 10(-4 ) (Pa/ radicalHz) in air were deduced. The experimental results obtained in water as well as in air show that this optical heterodyne technique offers a very sensitive way of measuring ultrasonic pressures in the low megahertz range even for very low pressures.     

A Remote,Non-destructive Laser Ultrasonic Material Evaluation System with Simplified Optical Fibre Interferometer Detection

An optical non-contact ultrasonic testing system is presented. It uses broadband surface acoustic wave impulses generated with a cylindrical lens focused laser line source. The detection of the ultrasound is achieved by a simple and yet effective design of optical fibre interferometer which provides good sensitivity and manoeuvrability. The effectiveness of the fibre interferometer is demonstrated by accurately measuring the broadband surface waves on various common metal structures. The measurement system’s ability for surface material evaluation is also demonstrated from fitting experimental surface wave dispersion curves with theoretical simulations. This measurement system can test small localised areas and miniature samples that were previously difficult to examine.     

An interference method for measuring parallelism of miniature optical components

A method for measuring parallelism of transparent optical components with small aperture size is described. It uses a Haidinger-type laser interferometer adapted for the measurement of optical components with millimeter and sub-millimeter aperture size. The method is based on the measurement of the optical thickness variation when the plate under test is translated across a focused laser beam. Measurement results for optical parts with 0.8 mm–10 mm aperture size are presented.     

Wedge-plate shearing interferometers for collimation testing: use of a moiré technique

Various optical arrangements of a double-wedge-plate shearing interferometer are presented for checking laser beam collimation. The use of moiré fringes is found to be advantageous for setting the shear fringes parallel to the direction of shear in order to obtain a well-collimated laser beam. The experimental procedure and various details of the interferometer are discussed. A brief summary of a few methods for collimation testing that use a wedge plate is also given. The accuracies achievable with shearing interferometers that use a parallel plate, a wedge plate of small angle, a double wedge having a large wedge angle, a wedge plate of large angle along with two flat mirrors, and a wedge plate having a large angle are compared and summarized.     

Modeling the instrument line shape of Fourier-transform spectrometers within the framework of partial coherence

The instrument line shape (ILS) of Fourier-transform spectrometers is modeled within a framework that enables us to take into account the partial coherence of optical fields. The cross spectral density and the angular coherence functions are used to develop a global ILS model including all possible geometric defects that can be introduced by a realistic two-beam interferometer. Tilt and shear no longer only reduce the modulation efficiency but are presented as contributors to the ILS. The case of an incoherent secondary planar source is covered and agrees with previously known results. However, it shows a coupling among tilt, shear, and optical path difference (OPD). A quasi-coherent source is also studied. Differences between the incoherent and the quasi-coherent cases are highlighted. The relative localization of the reference laser beam in the interferometer is shown to be of significance to provide a sampling scale that minimizes the OPD, or phase, induced by angular misalignment.     

Interferometric phase reconstruction by nonuniform shifting of the reference beam

A method for phase measurement in common-path interferometers, believed to be novel, is presented. We use the property of phase reconstruction algorithms, such as the Carré and Hariharan algorithms, that do not require uniform phase across the reference beam. Only the ratio of the phase steps must be the same at each pixel. We show phase measurement and reconstruction in a common-path interferometer by shifting either the tilt or the focus of the reference wave front. We present a theoretical explanation of phase measurement using this property. We also present results from a proof-of-principle experiment using a scatterplate interferometer, in conjunction with the tilt phase-shifting technique, to measure the reflected phase of a test optical element. Furthermore, we present a computer simulation to demonstrate the mathematical validity of this measurement technique using defocus shifting, rather than tilt shifting, in the reference wave front.     

Characterization and use of an optical fiber interferometer for measurement of the electric wind

An optical fiber interferometer of the Mach-Zehnder type has proved to be a convenient and accurate method for measuring the electric wind in the active region of a corona discharge. The technique relies on the cooling effect of the wind on a small heated region of one arm of the interferometer, which has been remotely heated with an infrared CO(2) laser beam. Wind speeds of up to 5.5 m s(-1) have been measured near the generation region, and by the use of a mesh electrode, the wind has been detected on the axis up to 0.5 m away from the gap. A number of characterization experiments that show the interferometer to be a useful diagnostic tool in the quantitative analysis of the CO(2) laser beam have also been carried out, and good agreement between experimental results and theoretical calculations based on a simple heat-power balance equation for the fiber exists.     

Near-IR absorption in high-purity photothermorefractive glass and holographic optical elements: measurement and application for high-energy lasers

Volume Bragg gratings (VBGs) in photothermorefractive (PTR) glass are widely used for laser beam control including high-power laser systems. Among them, spectral beam combining based on VBGs is one of the most promising. Achieving 100+ kW of combined laser beams requires the development of PTR glass and VBGs with an extremely low absorption coefficient and therefore methods of its measurement. This paper describes the calorimetric method that was developed for measuring a low absorption coefficient in PTR glass and VBGs. It is based on transmission monitoring of the intrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer produced by the plane-parallel surfaces of the measured optical elements when heated by high-power laser radiation. An absorption coefficient at 1085 nm as low as 5×10(-5) cm(-1) is demonstrated in pristine PTR glass while an absorption coefficient as low as 1×10(-4) cm(-1) is measured in high-efficiency reflecting Bragg gratings with highest purity. The actual level of absorption in PTR glass allows laser beam control at the 10 kW level, while the 100 kW level would require active cooling and/or decreasing the absorption in PTR Bragg gratings to a value similar to that in virgin PTR glass.     

Inspection of commercial optical devices for data storage using a three Gaussian beam microscope interferometer

Recently, an interferometric profilometer based on the heterodyning of three Gaussian beams has been reported. This microscope interferometer, called a three Gaussian beam interferometer, has been used to profile high quality optical surfaces that exhibit constant reflectivity with high vertical resolution and lateral resolution near lambda. We report the use of this interferometer to measure the profiles of two commercially available optical surfaces for data storage, namely, the compact disk (CD-R) and the digital versatile disk (DVD-R). We include experimental results from a one-dimensional radial scan of these devices without data marks. The measurements are taken by placing the devices with the polycarbonate surface facing the probe beam of the interferometer. This microscope interferometer is unique when compared with other optical measuring instruments because it uses narrowband detection, filters out undesirable noisy signals, and because the amplitude of the output voltage signal is basically proportional to the local vertical height of the surface under test, thus detecting with high sensitivity. We show that the resulting profiles, measured with this interferometer across the polycarbonate layer, provide valuable information about the track profiles, making this interferometer a suitable tool for quality control of surface storage devices.