INTERFEROMETRY

Principle of Interference
If two rays of same wavelength meet at some point, mutual interference occurs & natural interference
depends on Phase of two waves at their meeting point.
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• If two rays are in same phase, then resulting intensity will
be the sum of two intensity.

• If two rays are out of phase, then resulting intensity will be the
difference of two intensity.
• If two rays having same amplitude are in same phase, then
resultant will be twice & result will be Bright spot.
• If two rays having same amplitude are out of phase, then
resultant will be zero & result will be Dark spot.
 Types of Interferometers

1. Michelson Interferometer
2. Fabry-Perot Interferometer
3. Fringe counting Interferometer
4. NPL Flatness Interferometer
5. Pitter-NPL Interferometer
6. Zeiss gauge block Interferometer
7. Multiple beam Interferometer
8. Laser Interferometer

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NPL Flatness Interferometer

The NPL flatness interferometer is used for checking

flatness between gauge surfaces.

(a) Equal fringes on

(b) Unequal fringes due
parallel
to flatness error
Working

• The light from a mercury vapour lamp is condensed and passed through a green filter, resulting in a green
monochromatic light source.
• The light will now pass through a pinhole, giving an intense point
source of monochromatic light.
• Therefore, the collimating lens projects a parallel beam of light onto the face of the gauge to be tested via an
optical flat.
• This results in the formation of interference fringes.
• The light beam, which carries an image of the fringes, is reflected back and directed by 90° using a glass plate
reflector.
• In Fig. (a), the fringes are parallel and equal in number on the two
surfaces. Obviously, the two surfaces are parallel, which means that the gauge surface is perfectly flat.
• On the other hand, in Fig. (b), the number of fringes is unequal and,
since the base plate surface is ensured to be perfectly flat, the work piece surface has a flatness error.
Pitter–NPL Gauge Interferometer

• This interferometer is used for determining actual lengths of

slip gauges.

• Illuminator provides a concentrated light source

 Working:-
• Light from a monochromatic source (the preferred light source is a cadmium lamp) is condensed by a condensing
lens and focused onto an illuminating aperture.
• This provides a concentrated light source. Thus, a parallel beam of light falls on a
constant deviation prism.
• This prism splits the incident light into light rays of different wavelengths and hence different colors. The user can select
a desired color by varying the angle of the reflecting faces of the prism relative to the plane of the base plate.
• The prism turns the light by 90° and directs it onto the optical flat.
• The optical flat can be positioned at a desired angle by means of a simple arrangement. The slip gauge that is to be
checked is kept right below the optical flat on top of the highly flat surface of the base plate.
• The lower portion of the optical flat is coated with a film of aluminum, which
transmits and reflects equal proportions of the incident light.
• The light is reflected from three surfaces, namely the surface of the optical flat, the upper surface of the slip gauge,
and the surface of the base plate.
• Light rays reflected from all the three surfaces pass through the optical system
again; however, the axis is slightly deviated due to the inclination of the optical flat. This slightly shifted light is
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captu re d b y a nother prism, so that the fringe
Field of view of fringe pattern

It can be seen that the two sets of fringes are displaced by an

amount a with respect to each other. The value of a varies
depending on the color of the incident light. The displacement a
is expressed as a fraction of the fringe spacing b, which is as
follows:
f = a/b

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Laser Interferometers

• Laser interferometers can be used for measurements of

small diameters as well as large displacements.
 Working:-

• Laser light first falls on the semi-reflector P, is partially reflected by 90° and falls on the other reflector S.
• A portion of light passes through P and strikes the corner cube. Light
is turned through 180° by the corner cube and recombines at the semi- reflector S.
• If the difference between these two paths of light (PQRS − PS) is an
odd number of half wavelengths, then interference will occur at S and the diode output will be at a minimum. On the other
hand, if the path difference is an even number of half wavelengths, then the photodiodes will register maximum output.

Each time, the moving slide is displaced by a quarter wavelength, the path difference (i.e., PQRS − PS) becomes half
a wavelength and the output from the photodiode also changes from maximum to minimum or vice versa.