Noise in an FM-Converted Self-Mixing Interferometer

Abstract

We measure the noise of the converted frequency-modulated (cFM) signal in a self-mixing interferometer (SMI) and confirm the theoretical prediction of a dependence of rms noise from ( $1+ C)^{-1}$ , where $C$ is the Acket feedback factor, up to a high value (i.e., $C=30$ ) in region III of Tkach and Chraplyvy feedback diagram. We also verify the minor dependence of noise from the phase factor 2 ks + atan $\alpha $ . Finally, we show that the cFM SMI easily attains an unprecedented limit of small-signal detection, with amplitudes down to 0.25 pm/ $\surd $ Hz.