Simultaneous measurement of thickness and group refractive index in birefringent crystals

Abstract

In order to measure the group refractive index and thickness of birefringent crystals simultaneously, a method based on spectral-domain interferometry is proposed. The optical path of each reflection layer of birefringent crystal is converted into spectral interference fringe of corresponding frequency by the principle of spectral-domain interferometry, and the accurate optical path calculation is realized by fast Fourier transform and Hanning-windowed energy centrobaric method. A two-step measurement method was designed to measure the crystal thickness and group refractive index of ordinary ( o ) and extraordinary ( e ) light synchronously by comparing the changes of the optical path before and after the insertion of the sample. The comparison between experimental and theoretical results of LiNbO3 crystals shows that the accuracy of the thickness measured by this system is better than 1 μm and the relative error of the group refractive index is better than 0.15%. The measurement method is simple to implement and has high precision, which is of practical significance for realizing the rapid and high-precision measurement of optical parameters of birefringent crystals.