Multi-functional full-field common path heterodyne interferometer for linear birefringence material measurements

In this study, we adopted common path heterodyne interferometer to measure the optical parameters of linear birefringence materials. The sample is a multiple-order quartz quarter-waveplate and six optical parameters including the principal axis, phase retardation, order, thickness and the refractive indices (n_c and n_o) of a waveplate are extracted by using the sequential measurements with two experimental setups. Furthermore, in order to promote the technique in the full-field measurement, we apply CCD (charge couple device) as a detector triggered by CPLD (complex programmable logic device). The full-field information can be calculated by measuring three frames of the CCD image sequentially. In this paper, we not only successfully obtain six optical parameters in a single point detection, but also the principal axis and phase retardation in a full-field measurement are achieved.