Sinusoidal phase modulating laser diode interferometer using an additive operating type of integrating bucket method

Abstract

We propose a sinusoidal phase modulating laser diode interferometer using an additive operating type of integrating bucket method. In previous integrating bucket method, four images, which are integrated values of the interference pattern detected by a CCD image sensor, are required. According to additive and subtractive operations in a calculator, the quadrature signals can be calculated from these images. While these operations are associated with the technical computing software, such as MATLAB, in a personal computer, it is quite fast, even if the images possess large size. In a standard-alone system with a CPU, however, this kind of operation expends unbearable time. To lighten the burden of the calculator, we tried to simplify the operation. That is, on the basis of integrating bucket method, the subtraction in the signal processing is transformed to the addition by use of the phase shifting technique. All additive operations are achieved with the CCD image sensor. In this interferometer, not only the calculating quantity is reduced, but also the number of required images is reduced. The surface profile of a diamond-turned aluminum disk was measured. The repeatability in the measurements was 5.93 nm rms.