Abstract

Mirror misalignment or the tilt angle of the Michelson interferometer can be estimated from the modulation depth measured with collimated monochromatic light. The intensity of the light beam is usually assumed to be uniform, but, for example, with gas lasers it generally has a Gaussian distribution, which makes the modulation depth less sensitive to the tilt angle. With this assumption, the tilt angle may be underestimated by about 50%. We have derived a mathematical model for modulation depth with a circular aperture and Gaussian beam. The model reduces the error of the tilt angle estimate to below 1%. The results of the model have been verified experimentally.

©2011 Optical Society of America

Ghost reflections of Gaussian beams in anamorphic optical systems with an application to Michelson interferometer

Rania H. Abd El-Maksoud
Appl. Opt. 55(6) 1302-1309 (2016)

Influence of the tilting reflection mirror on the temperature and wind velocity retrieved by a polarizing atmospheric Michelson interferometer

Chunmin Zhang and Ying Li
Appl. Opt. 51(27) 6508-6517 (2012)

Accurate laser wavelength measurement with a precision two-beam scanning Michelson interferometer

J.-P. Monchalin, M. J. Kelly, J. E. Thomas, N. A. Kurnit, A. Szöke, F. Zernike, P. H. Lee, and A. Javan
Appl. Opt. 20(5) 736-757 (1981)

The tempo-spatially modulated polarization atmosphere Michelson interferometer

ChunMin Zhang, HuaChun Zhu, and Baochang Zhao
Opt. Express 19(10) 9626-9635 (2011)

Development of stable monolithic wide-field Michelson interferometers

Xiaoke Wan, Jian Ge, and Zhiping Chen
Appl. Opt. 50(21) 4105-4114 (2011)