Miniature Plane-Mirror

Interferometer

1

SP-Series

Design and Operation

Major Performance Features

Our SP-Series miniature plane-mirror interferometers are precision

length measurement instruments designed for incorporation

into customer supplied systems, and are readily adapted to

suit a wide variety of experimental setups and tasks. The

miniaturized sensor head allows their employment as permanently

installed metrological systems.

Planar mirrors or other optical-quality reflective surfaces may be

employed as reflectors on their translating arms, and may be

angularly misaligned by as much as several minutes of arc with

respect to the laser beam without adversely affecting the

operation of the interferometer. The beam from the laser light

source is transmitted to the sensor head by a fiberoptic cable.

The miniature interferometer converts motions of the planar

mirror along the beam axis into optical interference signals that

are transmitted to an optoelectronic signal processing/power

supply unit for processing and output as lengths.

Instrument operation and display of measurement results are

controlled either through a separate keypad/display unit or a

PC running an optional software package.

• Ultraprecise length measurement instruments

• Single beam design minimizes Abbe

aberrations when correctly aligned

• Versatile instruments for incorporation into

customer supplied systems, readily adapted to

suit a wide variety of tasks

• Fiberoptic coupled sensor head

• A planar mirror or other reflective surface may

be employed as the moving reflector

• Objects being measured may wander off the

beam axis if the mirror or other reflective

surface employed is sufficiently large

• Low heat loss to the environment

• Employs frequency-stabilized HeNe lasers as

light sources

• Corrects for variations in laser wavelength

caused by ambient conditions

Applications

• Precision laser interferometric length

measurement systems for incorporation into,

or calibrating, translation stages, microscope

stages, positioning stages, metrological

equipment, machine tools, or hardness testing

and materials testing equipment

• Single/dual/multi-axis coordinate

measurements

• Dual-coordinate measurements in a single

plane on, e.g., plane tables

• Calibrating length measurement

instrumentation

• Runout and eccentricity measurements

• Noncontact surface profiling