This Field Guide provides a practical treatment of the fundamental theory of displacement measuring interferometry, with examples of interferometry systems and uses. It outlines alignment techniques for optical components, signal processing systems for phase measurements, and laser stabilization for homodyne and heterodyne sources. The concept of displacement measurement uncertainty is discussed with a practical example of calculating uncertainty budgets. For practicing engineers, this Field Guide will serve as a refresher manual for error sources and uncertainty budgets. For researchers, it will bring new insight to the way in which this technology can be useful in their field. For new engineers, researchers, and students, it will also serve as an introduction into basic alignment techniques for breadboard-based optical systems.

Provides a practical treatment of the fundamental theory of displacement measuring interferometry, with examples of interferometry systems and uses. It outlines alignment techniques for optical components, signal processing systems for phase measurements, and laser stabilisation for homodyne and heterodyne sources.

Holographic interferometry has reached a state of practical application wherein many different structural deformations have been recorded. Some of these recordings can be interpreted by casual observation while others require a detailed mathematical analysis to convert fringe patterns into displacement data. A few investigators have proposed different mathematical models for fringe formation resulting from surface displacements. Most of these models, however, do not adequately represent realistic structures. The report is concerned with examining these approaches and devising a systematic plan of investigating displacement determination for complex structures.

Based on the author's course at University of Arizona, this guide covers the key fundamentals of interferometry, types of interferometers and interferograms, concepts of phase-shifting interferometry, long-wavelength interferometry, testing of aspheric surfaces, measurement of surface microstructure, flat and curved surface testing, and more.

Advances in engineering precision have tracked with technological progress for hundreds of years. Over the last few decades, precision engineering has been the specific focus of research on an international scale. The outcome of this effort has been the establishment of a broad range of engineering principles and techniques that form the foundation of precision design. Today’s precision manufacturing machines and measuring instruments represent highly specialised processes that combine deterministic engineering with metrology. Spanning a broad range of technology applications, precision engineering principles frequently bring together scientific ideas drawn from mechanics, materials, optics, electronics, control, thermo-mechanics, dynamics, and software engineering. This book provides a collection of these principles in a single source. Each topic is presented at a level suitable for both undergraduate students and precision engineers in the field. Also included is a wealth of references and example problems to consolidate ideas, and help guide the interested reader to more advanced literature on specific implementations.

This Open Access book discusses an extension to low-coherence interferometry by dispersion-encoding. The approach is theoretically designed and implemented for applications such as surface profilometry, polymeric cross-linking estimation and the determination of thin-film layer thicknesses. During a characterization, it was shown that an axial measurement range of 79.91 μm with an axial resolution of 0.1 nm is achievable. Simultaneously, profiles of up to 1.5 mm in length were obtained in a scan-free manner. This marked a significant improvement in relation to the state-of-the-art in terms of dynamic range. Also, the axial and lateral measurement range were decoupled partially while functional parameters such as surface roughness were estimated. The characterization of the degree of polymeric cross-linking was performed as a function of the refractive index. It was acquired in a spatially-resolved manner with a resolution of 3.36 x 10-5. This was achieved by the development of a novel mathematical analysis approach.