Open AccessA new balanced-path heterodyne I/Q-interferometer scheme for low environmental noise, high sensitivity phase measurements for both reflection and transmission geometry
Author(s) -
Seunghyun Yoon,
Young-Kyu Park,
Kyuman Cho
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.21.020722
Subject(s) - optics , interferometry , sensitivity (control systems) , heterodyne (poetry) , physics , reflection (computer programming) , transmission (telecommunications) , heterodyne detection , beam (structure) , phase noise , phase (matter) , optical path length , optical path , noise (video) , refractive index , computer science , telecommunications , acoustics , electronic engineering , laser , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , image (mathematics) , programming language , engineering
A new heterodyne interferometer scheme which has open accesses to both the geometrically balanced probe beam (PB) and reference beam (RB) paths, for which, depending on the nature of a specific sensing mechanism, a transmission geometry or a reflection geometry can be employed, is presented. We will show that, because of a small separation between the short length PB and RB running parallel to each other our newly proposed optical arrangement allows high rejection of unlocalized environmental perturbations. In fact, the geometrically balanced optical arrangement provides 19 dB rejection of any vibrations parallel to the direction of beam propagation, which cannot be achieved in a conventional interferometer scheme. Applications of this new interferometer scheme are discussed. As an example, we will show that our newly proposed interferometer scheme can be applied for high sensitivity measurements of concentration dependent refractive indexes in various solutions.