Simultaneous measurement of surface shape and absolute optical thickness of a glass plate by wavelength tuning phase-shifting interferometry

Abstract

The absolute optical thickness and the surface shape of a glass plate of 7-in. square and 3.1mm thick was simultaneously measured by three-surface interferometry using a wavelength tuning Fizeau interferometer. The wavelength of a tunable diode laser is scanned linearly from 632 to 642 nm, at which the initial and the final phases of the interference fringes for the surface shape and for the optical thickness were separated and measured by a tunable phase-shifting technique. The number of phase variations in the interference fringes during the scanning is counted by discrete Fourier analysis, in which systematic errors caused by a nonlinearity in the wavelength scanning is corrected by a correlation analysis between the observed and theoretical interference fringes. Experimental results demonstrate that the systematic errors in the measured value were 15 nm for the surface shape and 0.6 μm for the absolute optical thickness.