Diffraction effects in length measurements by laser interferometry

Abstract

High-accuracy dimensional measurements by laser interferometers require corrections because of diffraction, which makes the effective fringe-period different from the wavelength of a plane (or spherical) wave ${\lambda }_0$. By using a combined X-ray and optical interferometer as a tool to investigate diffraction across a laser beam, we observed wavelength variations as large as $10^{-8}{\lambda }_0$. We show that they originate from the wavefront evolution under paraxial propagation in the presence of wavefront- and intensity-profile perturbations.

preprint, 10 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Optics Express

References in corpus (1)

• A more accurate measurement of the ${}^{28}$Si lattice parameter

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Coupling of wavefront errors and pointing jitter in the LISA interferometer: misalignments of the interfering wavefronts
• Wavefront errors in a two-beam interferometer