Note: Optimal choice of the reflector by phase analysis for heterodyne interferometric roll angle measurement.

Abstract

The choice of an actual reflector instead of an ideal or perfect reflector has to be dealt with for heterodyne-interferometric roll angle measurement methods. The candidates of regular reflectors such as corner cube prism and right angle prism are analyzed by the homogeneous coordinate transformation method, which provides a theoretical basis for the determination of the actual reflector. Furthermore, the influences of the phase loss of the determined reflector are strictly argued due to non-perfect or natural characteristics itself. Several tactics are considered to solve this problem by phase analysis. By contrast, it is an optimal choice that mirrors-based right angle prism can improve evidently the phase loss by experiment.