Optical heterodyne grating shearing interferometry for long-range positioning applications

We develop a displacement measurement and positioning system with nanometer resolution over the millimeter traveling range. The method is based on a heterodyne grating shearing interferometry, a homemade lock-in amplifier and a servo control loop for displacement sensing and positioning. The quasi-common optical path configuration of our system provides better immunity against environmental disturbances. The experimental results demonstrate that our system can measure small and long displacement with nanometric resolution. The device achieves a positioning resolution of 2.3 nm over a traveling range of 20 mm.     

Continual deformation analysis with scanning phase method and time sequence phase method in temporal speckle pattern interferometry

If a laser beam illuminates a continual deformation object surface, it will lead to a temporal speckle pattern on the observation plane. Recording this time-dependent speckle pattern the deformation of the surface of an object can be obtained. Two methods, scanning phase method (SPM) and time sequence phase method (TSPM), have been introduced for measuring the displacement caused by the deformation in temporal speckle pattern interferometry (TSPI). Their principle is that by capturing a series of speckle interference patterns related to the object deformations, the fluctuations in the intensity of the interference patterns can be obtained. Through scanning these fluctuations and estimating both the average intensity and modulation of the temporal speckle interference patterns, the phase maps for whole-field displacements are calculated. In this way one is capable of quantitatively measuring continual displacements simply using a conventional electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI) system without phase shifting or a carrier. The elaboration on the new methods is given in this paper and experiments are performed to demonstrate their performance with a conventional ESPI system.     

Non-contact method for measuring solution concentration using surface plasmon resonance apparatus and heterodyne interferometry

A simple non-contact method is proposed for measuring the concentration of solutions. Using the significant phase difference between p- and s-polarizations of the reflected light of a surface plasmon resonance apparatus, the variation in the phase difference, which is caused by a variation in the concentration of a test solution, can be accurately measured by common path heterodyne interferometry. Then, by substituting the corresponding variation in the incident angle of light at the base of the SPR prism in a specially derived equation, the concentration of the test solution can be determined. The validity of this method was demonstrated experimentally. This method is characterized by the advantages of the device having a simple non-contact structure; it being easy to operate; and its high accuracy, stability, and resolution.     

CD-R groove measurement by phase stepping interferometry

The interferometric CD-R groove measurements in transmission and reflection mode with He–Ne and Ar⁺ lasers are presented. The phase micro-inhomogeneities on the surface relief of polycarbonate substrates are compared with the surface relief of a stamping onto copper layer metal master for rainbow holograms, used as a test object. The grid density of the test object is about 60% higher than the density of the CD-R groove at a similar relief depth. The reason for the phase inhomogeneities is due to the refractive index variations of the polymer substrate. The RMS of the measurements is not higher than 0.1 rad.     

New algorithm of white-light phase shifting interferometry pursing higher repeatability by using numerical phase error correction schemes of pre-processor, main processor, and post-processor

White-light phase shifting interferometry (WLPSI) is frequently used for the precision measurement of 3D patterns in various fields. Phase error is one of the most dominant errors in WLPSI, and it is mainly generated by the scanner positioning error and mechanical vibrations. In this paper, phase error detection method by image analysis is proposed, and the numerical correction method for minimizing the phase error is also proposed. The image reconstruction method (IRM), iterative IRM (IIRM) as pre-processors, partial IRM (PIRM), least squares method (LSM) as a main processor, and surface compensation method (SCM) as a post-processor were developed for correcting phase errors. The five methods are implemented and simulated, and the pros and cons of each method are explained.Mirau type interferometry and the phase error generator using a PZT stage were used, and the measurements by WLPSI were done under various vibration conditions. The captured images were analyzed by the five correction methods, and the results were compared. Phase error was effectively minimized by the correction methods, and repeatability of 0.2 nm was obtained in the case of the specimen of 500 nm in height. Repeatability of 10 nm was obtained by conventional WLPSI algorithms for the same specimen.     

Measurement of small displacement based on surface plasmon resonance heterodyne interferometry

This paper proposes an optical method for measuring small displacements using the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) heterodyne interferometry. A heterodyne light beam reflected by a mirror passes through a hemisphere glass and then enters into a surface plasmon resonance apparatus at the resonant angle. A small displacement of the mirror will introduce a phase-difference variation between p- and s-polarizations of the light emerging from the SPR apparatus. The phase-difference variation can be precisely measured with the heterodyne interferometric technique, and the associated displacement can be estimated. The feasibility of this method was verified by experiment, and the displacement measurement resolution of about 1.4 nm over a traveling range of 6 μm was achieved. Our method of measurement has the merits of both common-path interferometry and heterodyne interferometry.     

基于合成波长法的飞秒激光外差干涉测距方法

本文提出了一种基于合成波长法的飞秒激光外差干涉测距方法.系统采用两个带通滤波器产生两个具有一定波长差的单波长,用于产生合成波长.本方法结构简单,能量利用率高.与双频激光干涉仪在40 mm范围内的比对结果表明,该方法比对残差的标准差为91 nm.     

Generalized linear prediction method in phase-shifting interferometry in the presence of noise

The effectiveness of phase-shifting interferometry (PSI) techniques employing piezoelectric device PZT in the estimation of phase depends largely on the accuracy with which the phase shifts are imparted to the device and the noise influencing the measurement. Several effective algorithms have been proposed to compute the phase shifts imparted to the device and subsequently obtain the phase using least-squares estimation technique. In this paper, we propose a generalized approach, which accurately estimates the phase shifts in the presence of noise. The method is based on the idea of linear prediction and explores the fact that sampling more data frames yields a reliable phase step estimate in a least-squares sense. We also compare our method with a commonly used generalized phase-shifting method based on histogram analysis and show that our proposed approach is highly effective. We also present simulation and experimental validations of our proposed method.     

Quantitative phase retrieval in dynamic laser speckle interferometry

The rapid progress of modern manufacturing and inspection technologies has posed stringent requirements on optical techniques for vibration characterization and dynamic testing. Due to its simplicity, accuracy and whole-field characters, laser speckle interferometry has served as one of the major techniques for dynamic measurement. In this paper, a two-step phase shifting method is developed for quantitative speckle phase measurement, which helps to eliminate the specklegrams needed for phase evaluation and facilitate dynamic measurement. Unlike previously reported two-step methods using fringe patterns with known phase shift of π/2, a small unknown phase shift is employed instead in the proposed method, which eliminates the need for phase shifting devices. Further investigation shows that small phase shifts are preferable over large phase shifts in this method. Shearographic experiments conducted have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed technique.     

Measurement of sub-surface delaminations in carbon fibre composites using high-speed phase-shifted speckle interferometry and temporal phase unwrapping

A high-speed phase-shifted speckle interferometer has been developed recently for studying dynamic events. Speckle interferograms are continuously recorded by a CCD camera operating at 1 kHz with temporal phase shifting carried out by a Pockels cell running at the same frequency. Temporal phase unwrapping through sequences of more than 1000 frames allows the determination of time-varying absolute displacement maps. This paper presents the application of this speckle interferometry system to the detection and measurement of sub-surface delamination defects in carbon fibre specimens. The influence of re-referencing the temporal phase unwrapping algorithm after different time intervals is analysed to reduce the random phase errors produced by speckle decorrelation and vibration. The performance of several phase-shifting algorithms to minimize the influence of the vibration noise caused by the vacuum pump used to load the specimen is also investigated.     

基于多频外差原理的相位校正及匹配方法研究

利用多频外差原理推导四频光栅条纹相位解包裹过程,同时,为了减小相位解包裹误差,提出一种相位校正的方法,并分析了相位校正对匹配结果的影响;通过将校正后的绝对相位值作为匹配的依据,利用极线对上基于相位的亚像素匹配方法;利用三维重建技术获取物体的三维点云数据。实验结果表明:平面测量的匹配率提高了4.97%,测量精度达到0.189 5 mm。     

Adaptive filter for unwrapping noisy phase image in phase-stepping interferometry

An adaptive filter for preprocessing wrapped phase image with high noise content has been developed. The window size of this median filter is adjustable according to its location in the noisy phase image. This size-adjustable median filter has not only high noise-rejection ability, but also both good phase-jump identification and image-detail preservation properties. Phase unwrapping can then be done to recover the real phase image without the hampering influence of noise, especially the noise near the phase jumps. Both numerical simulation and experimental results used to examine the effectiveness of this adaptive filter are presented.     

Alternative method of wavelength drift free dual-wavelength heterodyne interferometry for the absolute distance measurement

Based on the technique of dual-wavelength and principle of heterodyne interferometry, a modified method for measuring the absolute distance is proposed. Because two test lights suffer from the same influence of wavelength drift in the measurement setup, the minus effect coming from the wavelength drift can be offset. Therefore, the measurement accuracy can be significantly increased. The feasibility of this method was demonstrated with a measurement resolution of about 1.50 μm. This method provides the advantages of a simple optical setup, easy operation and rapid measurement.     

孔径扩展中相位修正因子估计的改进算法

传统的扩展拖曳阵列尺寸算法(Extended Towed Array Measurement,ETAM)在信噪比不够高、相位修正因子的相位角处于以间断点为中心的\     

Comparison of phase recovery methods in spiral speckle pattern interferometry correlation fringes

Spiral interferometry can be used as a solution to the problem of sign ambiguity presented in the conventional speckle pattern interferometric technique when the optical phase needs to be reconstructed from a single closed fringe system. Depressions and elevations of the topography corresponding to the object deformation are distinguished by the direction of rotation of the local spiral fringe pattern. In this work, we implement and compare several methods for optical phase reconstruction by analyzing a single image composed of spiral speckle pattern interferometry correlation fringes. The implemented methods are based on contour line demodulation, center line demodulation, Spiral Phase Quadrature Transform and the 2D Riesz transform with multivector structure. Contour line and center line demodulation approaches are exclusively dedicated to images containing a fringe system with spiral structure. The others are based on the 2D Riesz transform, these being well known approaches in conventional interferometry. We examine simulated experiments and analyze some of the emerging drawbacks for solving the phase reconstruction problem by using different mean values of speckle size and background noise levels. We also discuss several numerical procedures that may well improve the efficiency and robustness of the presented numerical implementations. The performance of the implemented demodulation methods is evaluated by using a universal image quality index and therefore a quantitative comparison is also presented.     

两步相移数字全息物光重建误差分析与校正

系统研究了两步相移数字全息干涉术中相移误差引起的波前再现误差的计算和校正方法. 基于衍射物光相位分布的随机性和振幅相位的相互独立性原理,介绍了相移数字全息中物光波前再现误差的表达形式,推导出步长为π/2的两步算法中物光重建误差的表达式. 通过进一步分析这一重建误差的结构和特点,结合物光表达式,给出了自动校正相移误差引起的波前重建误差的校正方法. 该方法无需增加测量,在未知相移误差大小的情况下,只对标准两步相移算法恢复的物光复振幅进行处理就可以实现对物光振幅和相位的同时校正. 计算机模拟结果表明,校正后可将 关键词： 相移干涉术 数字全息 物光重建 误差校正     

Measurement of fiber chromatic dispersion using spectral interferometry with modulation of dispersed laser pulses

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a method for fiber dispersion measurement based on the modulation of laser pulses stretched by the fiber under test. The measured spectrum of the modulated pulses is the result of the interference between the stretched pulse spectra shifted by the modulation harmonics. The interference pattern is processed as in Fourier transform spectral interferometry. Unlike to conventional spectral interferometry, environmental conditions do not affect the interferogram due to the lack of any interferometer; additionally, large dispersions can be characterized by the method proposed. Its high accuracy is demonstrated in experimental comparison with the widely used phase shift technique.     

用于纳米测量的混合型外差干涉信号处理方法

通过对外差干涉信号同时进行相位检测和锁相倍频计数,可得到存在一定冗余度的一组测量结果,经过一定的逻辑混合;可实观测量分辨率优于０．１ｎｍ,测量范围不受λ／２周期限制,从而克服了以往单一采用相位测量法测量范围限于一个周期和锁相倍频计数法分辨率不易提高的难题。给出了在实际纳米测量干涉仪采用这种外差信号处理方法的测量结果。     

A semi-automatic method for measuring interferometry fringes: prototype design and first results

A device for automatically obtaining the information contained in holographic interferometry fringes is proposed. The method may be applied to any kind of interferometric fringes. Accuracy has been demonstrated by contrasting the results obtained with our prototype system and those with the single-beam speckle interferometry technique for the measurement of displacements in a plane. The results show good correlation between the two series of measurements.