The demand for minimal cyclic nonlinearity error in laser interferometry is increasing as a result of advanced scientific research projects. Research shows that the quadrature phase error is the main effect that introduces cyclic nonlinearity error, and polarization-mixing cross talk during beam splitting is the main error source that causes the quadrature phase error. In this paper, a new homodyne quadrature laser interferometer configuration based on nonpolarization beam splitting and balanced interference between two circularly polarized laser beams is proposed. Theoretical modeling indicates that the polarization-mixing cross talk is elaborately avoided through nonpolarizing and Wollaston beam splitting, with a minimum number of quadrature phase error sources involved. Experimental results show that the cyclic nonlinearity error of the interferometer is up to 0.6 nm (peak-to-valley value) without any correction and can be further suppressed to 0.2 nm with a simple gain and offset correction method.
A discrete fringe phase unwrapping algorithm (DFPUA) based on Kalman motion estimation is proposed to accurately demodulate the phases of I/Q-interferometers with deeply under-sampled quadrature signals, thus to break through the limitations of the Nyquist frequency for high-speed measurement. The basic concept of DFPUA is to estimate the current displacement according to the former motion state, then confirm the actual phase integer number by comparing the estimated phase decimal with the actual phase decimal; in this way, peak acceleration/jerk instead of peak velocity becomes the factor that determines the sampling rate. Two types of DFPUA including velocity estimation and velocity-acceleration estimation are illustrated in detail. Simulation experiment results indicate that the DFPUA realizes a significant reduction in the sampling rate and the amount of data for low frequency vibration measurement, proposing a practical approach for high-speed and long-time measurement such as ultra-low frequency vibration calibration.
The deviation of wave plates' optical axes from their intended angles, which may result from either instability or assembly error, is the main cause of quadrature phase error in homodyne quadrature laser interferometers (HQLIs). The quadrature phase error sensitivity to wave plate angle deviations, which is an effective measure of HQLI robustness, is further amplified by beam splitter imperfections. In this paper, a new HQLI design involving non-polarization beam splitting is presented, and a method of making this HQLI robust by yawing the wave plates in the measurement and reference arms is proposed. The theoretical analysis results indicate that ultra-low quadrature phase error sensitivities to wave plate angle deviations can be realized and that non-polarizing beam splitter imperfections can be adequately compensated for. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can reduce the quadrature phase error sensitivity by more than 1 order of magnitude, from a theoretical value of 1.4°/1° to 0.05°/1°.
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