Measurement of absolute distance employing a tunable CW dye laser

Author

Ikezawa, K. ; Isozaki, K. ; Ogita, E. ; Ueda, T.

Author_Institution

Yokogawa Electr. Corp., Tokyo, Japan

Volume

41

Issue

1

fYear

1992

fDate

2/1/1992 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

36

Lastpage

39

Abstract

With a tunable CW dye laser oscillating in a single longitudinal mode, measurement of an absolute distance is demonstrated with the method of excess fractions. Five beams which have different wavelengths are emitted sequentially from the dye laser, and the interferometric phase is measured for each wavelength. An interferometric order number for a wavelength can be calculated from values of wavelengths and phases. Then a precise value of length is obtained. This method is similar to measuring distances by using group delay as used in VLBI and microwave ranging. The measured accuracy was within ±8.8 nm between 0 and 10 mm (at an absolute distance of 0.1-10.1 mm)

Keywords

distance measurement; light interferometry; measurement by laser beam; absolute distance; excess fractions; interferometric phase; single longitudinal mode; tunable CW dye laser; Laser beam cutting; Laser beams; Laser modes; Materials science and technology; Microwave measurements; Optical interferometry; Phase measurement; Shape measurement; Tunable circuits and devices; Wavelength measurement;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Instrumentation and Measurement, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9456

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/19.126627

Filename

126627