Apparatus and methods for reduction and compensation of effects of vibrations and of environmental effects in wavefront interferometry
AssigneeZetetic Institute
InventorHenry A. Hill
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A wavefront interferometry system including: a wavefront interferometer that during operation combines a reference beam from a reference object and a measurement beam from a measurement object to generate a combined beam; and a processor system programmed to processes the combined beam to concurrently generate therefrom a control signal and information about the difference in wavefront profiles of the reference and measurement objects, wherein the control signal controls a system parameter so as to maintain an optical path length difference between a spot on the reference object and a corresponding spot on the measurement object at a constant value mod 2π.
Claims22
A wavefront interferometry system comprising:
- a source for generating a source beam;
- a reference object which interacts with at least a portion of the source beam to produce a reference beam;
- an optical system for deriving a measurement beam from the source beam and directing the measurement beam towards a measurement object to produce a return measurement beam that is combined with the reference beam to produce a combined beam;
- a beam splitter for separating out first and second portions of the combined beam;
- a first detector system for generating a first interference signal from the first portion of the combined beam;
- a second detector system for generating a second interference signal from the second portion of the combined beam;
- and
- a processor system programmed to concurrently process both the first and second interference signals to generate from the first interference signal a control signal and from the second interference signal information about the difference in wavefront profiles of the reference and measurement objects, wherein the control signal controls a system parameter so as to maintain an optical path length difference between a spot on the reference object and a corresponding spot on the measurement object at a constant value mod 2π.
A wavefront interferometry system comprising:
- a wavefront interferometer that during operation combines a reference beam from a reference object and a measurement beam from a measurement object to generate a combined beam;
- and
- a processor system programmed to processes the combined beam to concurrently generate therefrom a control signal and information about the difference in wavefront profiles of the reference and measurement objects, wherein the control signal controls a system parameter so as to maintain an optical path length difference between a spot on the reference object and a corresponding spot on the measurement object at a constant value mod 2π.
A method comprising:
- combining a reference beam from a reference object with a return measurement beam from a measurement object to generate a combined beam;
- processing the combined beam to concurrently generate therefrom a control signal and information about the difference in wavefront profiles of the reference and measurement objects;
- and
- using the control signal to maintain an optical path length difference between a spot on the reference object and a corresponding spot on the measurement object at a constant value mod 2π.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.