Interferometry of a reflective axicon surface with a small cone angle using an optical inner surface

Abstract

Reflective axicons, widely used in optical alignment and Bessel–Gauss beam generation, require a highly accurate cone angle and surface metrology. However, current methods focus on the cone angle measurement and it is still difficult to measure the surface of a reflective axicon with a small cone angle. An interferometer measurement method using an optical inner surface is proposed to obtain the surface and cone angle simultaneously. The optical axis of the axicon and the optical inner surface should align together and be parallel to the beam light from the interferometer. The interference fringe would be obtained by the optical system consisting of the axicon and the optical inner surface. The theoretical model is established and analyzed through ray tracing theory, and is verified by optical simulation software. Fabrication errors in the axicon and the inner surface, and misalignment of the measurement setup are investigated systematically and separated in the measurement process. In the experiments, the reflective axicon with a cone angle of about 90° was measured by the proposed method, the results of which show good agreement with a stylus profiler (Taylor-Hobson PGI 3D) in cone angle trend and generatrix error. Experimental results prove the feasibility of the proposed method. This economical and effective method can be widely used with all types of reflective axicons, and it can obtain the surface error map of the axicon as well as the inner cylinder at the same time. The uncertainty and resolution of the proposed method is based on the performance of the interferometer. The uncertainty of alignment angle errors is less than 10−10 rad; the lateral resolution is 53.8 µm.