Author
Wyant, James C.Affiliation
Univ Arizona, Wyant Coll Opt SciIssue Date
2020-08-21Keywords
Interferometryinterferometers
interference
optical testing
metrology
measurements
phase-shifting
Metadata
Show full item recordPublisher
SPIE-INT SOC OPTICAL ENGINEERINGCitation
Wyant, J. C. (2020, August). Amazing scatterplate interferometer. In Roland V. Shack Memorial Session: A Celebration of One of the Great Teachers of Optical Aberration Theory (Vol. 11479, p. 1147907). International Society for Optics and Photonics.Rights
© 2020 SPIE.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
The scatterplate interferometer is an amazing instrument invented by James M. Burch in 1953 for testing optical components and it is especially good for testing concave mirrors. This interferometer requires no high-quality optical components and it generates its own reference wavefront without having a reference surface. The light source does not have to be a point source or monochromatic - almost any light source will work. The path lengths of the two interferometer paths are automatically matched and, regardless of the reflectance of the test mirror, the light intensities of the two interfering beams are matched. The interferometer is not very sensitive to vibration and it is inexpensive to build. There are several ways to use phase-shifting techniques with the interferometer. This talk will describe and explain the properties of the amazing scatterplate interferometer.ISSN
0277-786XVersion
Final published versionae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1117/12.2570914