Compact, affordable optical test, measurement or imaging device

A Mach-Zhender interferometric system for analyzing data of a sample by means of a tunable filter, comprising:

• a broadband light source which emits a beam of broadband light;
• a first beam splitter which splits the beam into a reference arm and a sample arm;
• a lateral scanning optical system to reflect the sample arm beam from a second beam splitter to the sample and reflecting back to the second beam splitter after striking the sample;
• a mirror configured to reflect the beam of the reference arm to a third beam splitter;
• the second beam splitter reflects the sample arm reflected from the sample to the third beam splitter;
• a tunable filter, resides in the front of a single detector, receives an interfered light beam formed by the combination of the reflected sample arm passing through the third beam splitter and the reference arm reflecting from the minor, wherein the tunable filter is a Grating light valve (GLV) filter;
• and
• a single detector detects a multiplexed data from the tunable filter and forwards the multiplexed data to a data processing unit for analyzing.