Interferometer notes

inter

I picked up a HP 10706B interferometer module. The 10706B is a michelson interferometer. Michelson interferometers use the interference between a reference and measurement beam in order to measure distances of a few hundred nanometers.

The image below from the HP docs shows the path of the reference and measurement beams:

inter3

Anyway, I started playing around with it. Initially just to understand the beam path and see if I could see the beam reflected off the measurement mirror. I setup the laser and interferometer as shown above and could see the reflected beam. As expected the reflected beam dimmed when I occluded the mirror.

inter2

In this configuration it’s very unlikely that I’d be able to see the reference and measurement beams interfering. So I’ll be trying everything out on the anti-vibration table next.

Some other random pics:

P1000882

P1000887

P1000879

P1000889

Corner Cube:
P1000888