Simple phase shifting lateral shearing interferometer based on thick birefringent plate

Gu, Shuaiyan, Liu, Lei, Hu, Shiyu, Zeng, Aijun, Zhu, Linglin, Huang, Huijie

Publication in Journal of Optical Technology

For Russian citation (Opticheskii Zhurnal):

Shuaiyan Gu, Lei Liu, Shiyu Hu, Aijun Zeng, Linglin Zhu, Huijie Huang Simple phase shifting lateral shearing interferometer based on thick birefringent plate (Простой интерферометр сдвига с регулировкой фазы на основе толстой двулучепреломляющей пластины) [на англ. яз.] // Оптический журнал. 2017. Т. 84. № 4. С. 50–54.

Shuaiyan Gu, Lei Liu, Shiyu Hu, Aijun Zeng, Linglin Zhu, Huijie Huang Simple phase shifting lateral shearing interferometer based on thick birefringent plate (Простой интерферометр сдвига с регулировкой фазы на основе толстой двулучепреломляющей пластины) [in English] // Opticheskii Zhurnal. 2017. V. 84. № 4. P. 50–54.

For citation (Journal of Optical Technology):

Shuaiyan Gu, Lei Liu, Shiyu Hu, Aijun Zeng, Linglin Zhu, and Huijie Huang, "Simple phase shifting lateral shearing interferometer based on a thick birefringent plate," Journal of Optical Technology. 84(4), 260-264 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1364/JOT.84.000260

Abstract:

A simple phase shifting lateral shearing interferometer based on thick birefringent plate is proposed. The interferometer is composed of a thick birefringent plate and a polarizer. The thick birefringent plate works as the shear generator as well as the phase shifter. The optical path difference and shearing amount between the two sub-beams emerging from the thick birefringent plate change depending on the incident angle. For incident angles in a certain range, the shearing amount stays almost constant while the optical path difference varies linearly. Thus phase shifting can be obtained by rotating the thick birefringent plate. It is a very simple structure for test of a small beam and equidistant phase shifting can be obtained by equal incident angle variation. The validity of the interferometer is verified both by simulation and experiment.

Keywords:

an interferometer, a birefringent plate, a polarizer, a phase shifter

Acknowledgements:

This work is supported by National Science and Technology Major Project of China (2011ZX02402) and International Science & Technology Cooperation Programs of China (2011DFR10010, 2012DFG51590).

OCIS codes: 260.3160, 260.1440, 260.5430

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