Open AccessSynthetic-wavelength-based dual-comb interferometry for fast and precise absolute distance measurement
Author(s) -
Zebin Zhu,
Guangyao Xu,
Kai Ni,
Qian Zhou,
Guanhao Wu
Publication year - 2018
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.26.005747
Subject(s) - interferometry , optics , ranging , physics , wavelength , phase (matter) , frequency comb , distance measurement , accuracy and precision , laser , computer science , telecommunications , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence
We present an absolute distance measurement system using a phase-stable dual-comb system with 56.09 MHz repetition rate and 2 kHz repetition rate difference. A relative phase stability of 0.1 rad in 0.5 ms between two combs is achieved using a mutual locking scheme. The dual-comb ranging system combines the time-of-flight (TOF) method, synthetic-wavelength interferometry (SWI), and carrier wave interferometry (CWI). Each method provides a particular ambiguity range and resolution, and they can be applied simultaneously and linked to enhance the precision and measurement rate of the ranging system. The experimental results demonstrate that a precision of 1.2 μm is obtained without time averaging, and the precision can be improved to 3 nm with only 10 ms averaging time using the SWI method described in this study. The precision reaches a sub-nanometer when the averaging time exceeds 0.1 s. A system with high accuracy and short averaging time would enhance fast measurement performance in various industrial applications. The ambiguity range is about 2.67 m in our system, we test the performance of the system with 1.5 mm range at 1.5 m distance.