Estimation technique of global fringe visibility using in interferometers with adjustable visibility

Abstract

In the accuracy measurement of phase from interferometers with adjustable fringe visibility, it needs to estimate the visibility of experimental patterns so as to obtain the interference patterns with the maximum visibility. We develop the Fourier-polar transform and combine the directional projection to estimate the global visibility of carrier fringe pattern. The technique is especially used for low-quality fringe pattern such as low contrast and low (signal to noise ratio) SNR that often appear in the interferometric experiment. An illustrative experiment based on the radial shearing interferometer is given. Results generated from this technique are compared with the derived values from theoretical model, and exemplary agreement between both is demonstrated.