Problems regarding linearity of data of a laser interferometer with a single-frequency laser

In this paper, the main causes of scale nonlinearity of a laser interferometer with a single-frequency laser and a quadrature fringe detection system are described. The primary causes of scale nonlinearity are quadrature phase shift error and imperfect optical elements in the interferometer and detection unit. A method for measuring this nonlinearity with an optical compensator is described. Nonlinearities arising from quadrature phase shift error, unequal amplitudes, and electronic offsets in the detection unit can be compensated by means of a PC program as described herein. By using a differential interferometer with a resolution of 0.3 nm, the nonlinearity compensation was experimentally verified, and by averaging the measured values for 20 s, a linearity better than ±0.5 nm was achieved.