On the use of conical reflectors in laser displacement interferometry
A laser interferometer with 90/spl deg/ conical reflectors was tested. Reflectors with a conic section of 90/spl deg/ in the meridional plane are of interest in a number of applications, including laser displacement interferometry, especially for measurements in submicrometre range, laser spectroscopy, and multi-pass optical cells.
Design of a multipass optical cell based on the use of shifted corner cubes and right-angle prisms.
A design of a multipass optical cell is proposed. This design is based on the use of corner-cube retroreflectors arranged opposite to parallel axes, an incident beam that enters off the plane that contains the axes of the retroreflectors, and right-angle prisms to return to the cell the beam that left it after several reflections. This design allows the light beam to pass through the cell many times so that the beam paths fill the cell volume tightly and homogeneously.
Diffraction Effects in Optical Interferometers Illuminated by Laser Sources
In optical interferometers illuminated by laser sources the shift of the phase and changes in the curvature of the wave fronts lead to systematic errors, to which there must be added the error caused by misalignments. In the study described in the present article, the interference pattern was obtained from the actual amplitude and phase of the interfering wave fronts at the exit aperture of the interferometer. With reference to plane-wave illumination, the excess of the period of the output signal was obtained in a closed form in the case of small misalignment and negligible difference between the optical paths.