Oe 21 21 25553

Displacement measurement using a wavelength-
phase-shifting grating interferometer

Ju-Yi Lee* and Geng-An Jiang
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Central University, 300 Jhongda Rd., Jhongli City, Taoyuan
County 320, Taiwan
*juyilee@ncu.edu.tw
Abstract: A grating interferometer based on the wavelength-modulated

phase-shifting method for displacement measurements is proposed. A laser
beam with sequential phase shifting can be accomplished using a
wavelength-modulated light passing through an unequal-path-length optical
configuration. The optical phase of the moving grating is measured by the
wavelength-modulated phase-shifting technique and the proposed time-
domain quadrature detection method. The displacement of the grating is
determined by the grating interferometry theorem with the measured phase
variation. Experimental results reveal that the proposed method can detect a
displacement up to a large distance of 1 mm and displacement variation
down to the nanometer range.
©2013 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (120.0120) Instrumentation, measurement, and metrology; (120.3180)
Interferometry.
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#195534 - $15.00 USD Received 9 Aug 2013; revised 27 Sep 2013; accepted 9 Oct 2013; published 18 Oct 2013
(C) 2013 OSA 21 October 2013 | Vol. 21, No. 21 | DOI:10.1364/OE.21.025553 | OPTICS EXPRESS 25553
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1. Introduction
Among the primary metrology parameters (dimension, mass, time, and frequency), the
precision measurement of displacement plays an important role in modern technology. There
is an increasing demand for nanometric measurement resolution in nanotechnology,
semiconductors, precision manufacturing, photo-lithography, metrology instruments, high-
density mass data storage systems, etc. The optical interferometer is a typical measurement
tool and has been widely used for precision measurement of displacement because it offers a
high measurement resolution and a wide dynamic measurement range [1,2]. However,
temperature, humidity, air pressure, and air flow in the environment must be controlled to
maintain measurement accuracy [3,4]. Recently, common-optical-path heterodyne
interferometers [5–10] integrated with surface plasmon resonance (SPR) [5,6] or total internal
reflection (TIR) [7,8] have been developed for small displacement sensing. Their lens systems
convert the displacement into an angle variation of the measurement beam. By detecting the
optical phase variation of the measurement beam which passes through SPR or TIR, the
displacement can be determined. Due to the common-optical-path configuration, these
measurement systems can reduce environmental disturbance. However, the measurement
range is only a few micrometers or less.
In contrast, the grating interferometer is independent of the light source wavelength and
provides better immunity against environmental disturbances such as variations in
temperature, pressure, and humidity [4,11–14]. Different types of grating interferometers have
been developed to measure displacement with high resolution. For example, Teimel [11]
proposed a grating interferometer with polarization elements, and the displacement of the
grating was determined by phase quadrature signals. Kao et al. [15] presented a diffractive
laser encoder with a grating in the Littrow configuration. Kao’s laser encoder realized a
maximum measurement error of 53 nm and repeatability within ± 20 nm. Wu et. al. [16]
designed a Littrow-type self-aligned laser encoder with double diffractions. Due to the
symmetric optical configuration, Wu’s laser encoder had high tolerance. These laser encoders
for grating interferometers are based on phase quadrature detection. Although these encoders
have high measurement resolution, there are many optical polarization components in the
phase detection system, and the optical configurations are complex. Gao et. al. [17] measured
the x-directional position and the z-directional out-of-straightness of a precision linear air-
bearing stage with a 2-degree-of-freedom linear encoder. Recently, they further developed the
multi-degree-of-freedom (DOF) surface encoder [18,19] for the stage motion measurement.
Their multi-DOF surface encoder is composed of a planar scale grating and a reference
grating which is set in the optical sensor head. The diffracted beams from the scale and
reference gratings mutually interfere to generate interference signals. The multi-DOF
displacements can be determined by means of analyzing the phase variations of the
interference signals. Besides, the surface encoder incorporates the laser autocollimators for
angular sensing. Because of the well-designed mechanical structure, Gao’s multi-DOF surface
encoder is compact and has high measurement resolution. However, it is not easy to compact
the optical sensor head further, because there are many optical polarization components, such
as polarizers and quarter-wave plates, and photodetectors in the displacement assembly. In
this paper, we proposed a novel technique for the phase quadrature detection without any
polarization components. This technique can be used to reduce the size of optical sensor head.
Generally, heterodyne detection can effectively overcome the common problem of DC
offset and amplitude variation of the homodyne grating interferometer. Hsu et. al. [20]
developed a reflection-type heterodyne grating interferometer for in-plane displacement
measurement with a resolution of 0.5 nm. In 2007, we proposed a heterodyne grating
interferometer for measuring in-plane displacement with a resolution of 0.2 nm [21]. In the
heterodyne device, an electro–optical modulator installed in the interferometer modulates the
laser beams at different frequencies. Although the measurement resolution is high, the
electro–optical modulator is quite expensive and bulky. Ishii et. al [22,23] conducted several
studies on heterodyne interferometry with a frequency-modulated (or wavelength-modulated)
laser diode for surface profile measurement. The injection current is continuously changed to
introduce a time-varying phase difference between the two beams of an unbalanced Twyman–
Green interferometer. By analyzing the time-varying interference fringes, the interference
phase and surface profile can be determined. Following the thought of the wavelength-
modulated heterodyne detection, we presented a method of wavelength-modulated heterodyne
speckle interferometry for in-plane displacement measurement [24]. Different from the
electro–optical-modulation and acousto–optical-modulation methods, we combined an
optical-path-difference configuration with wavelength modulation of a laser diode source by
injection current modulation to achieve heterodyne detection. The displacement of the object
can be determined by the speckle interferometry theorem with heterodyne phase detection.
This previous work also demonstrated that the measurement system can detect a displacement
variation down to nanometer scale with a measurement range of hundreds of micrometers.
However, not only the wavelength, but also the light intensity of the laser diode is modulated
by the injection current. The modulated intensity that causes the interference signal is not a
pure sinusoid curve, and phase detection is difficult and inconvenient.
In this study, we developed a wavelength-modulated phase-shifting method and a grating
interferometer with double diffractions for displacement measurement. The principle used for
this interferometry can be regarded as time-domain quadrature detection. Different from
electro–optical or acousto–optical modulation, the phase shift of the light beam can be
accomplished using a wavelength-modulated laser beam passing through an unequal-path-
length optical configuration. We developed a new phase-extraction algorithm to calculate the
optical phase variation due to the Doppler shift from the moving grating. The displacement of
the grating is determined by the grating interferometry theorem with the measured phase
variation. From the experimental results, the measurement range of our system is up to
millimeter scale. Considering the high-frequency noise, the measurement resolution of the
system is about 2 nm. The feasibility is demonstrated.
2. Principle
First, the double-diffraction interference system and the optical phase variation which results
from the grating displacement are introduced in this section. Next, the wavelength-modulated
technique for phase-resolution is described.
2.1 Double-diffraction interference system
A schematic diagram of the double-diffraction interference system is shown in Fig. 1. For
convenience, the + z axis is chosen to be along the direction of propagation, and the x axis is
along the horizontal direction. A beam from the laser diode passes through the beam splitter
BS and is incident onto the diffraction grating G. The laser beam is diffracted into the + 1st-
and −1st-order beams. According to Fourier optics analysis in our previous work [21], when
the grating is displaced along x axis by an amount Δx, the optical phase in the + 1st- and −1st-
order beams increases and decreases, respectively, by φg = 2πΔx/Λ. Here Λ is the grating
pitch. For convenience, we assume that the amplitude of the original laser beam is 1, then the
amplitudes (E+1, E-1) of these two diffraction beams can be written as:
E ±1 ∝ exp  i
 2π l ± iφ  . (1)

 λ 
±1 g
Here 2π/λ is the wave number, λ is the wavelength of the laser beam, and l+1 and l−1 are the
optical paths of the + 1st- and −1st-order beams from the grating to mirrors M1 and M2,
respectively. Then, these two diffraction beams are reflected from M1 and M2, and diffracted
again by the grating G. These two double-diffracted beams can be expressed as:
E ' ±1 ∝ exp  i
 2π 2l ± i 2φ  . (2)

 λ 
±1 g
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the wavelength phase-shifting grating interferometer. The

diffraction beams can be reflected by (a) the mirrors or (b) the corner cube retro-reflectors.
These reflected beams are diffracted by the grating G again, and interfere with each other. FG:
Function Generator, LD: Laser Diode, BS: Beam Splitter, G: Grating, M: Mirror, C: Corner
Cube Retro-reflectors, PZT: Piezoelectric actuators, PD: Photodetector, PC: Personal
Computer.
These two double-diffracted beams propagate along the same optical path and interfere
with each other. The intensity of the interference detected by the photodetector is:
= 1 + cos ( 2πΔl λ + φ ) , (3)

2
I ∝ E ' +1 + E ' −1
where Δl = 2(l+1 − l−1) is the optical path difference of the two double-diffracted beams. φ =
2φg − (−2φg) = 4φg is the phase variation of the interference signal, which is 4 times the optical
phase variation of the diffracted beams. The optical path difference Δl and the tunable
wavelength of the laser diode are used to produce the phase shift for the measuring the phase
variation φ. It is noticed that M1 and M2 can be replaced by the corner cube retro-reflectors C1
and C2 shown in Fig. 1(b). The optical configuration in Fig. 1(b) has better optical efficiency.
From the above analysis, the relationship of the phase variation φ to the grating displacement
Δx is given as:
φ = 4φg = 8πΔx / Λ , (4a)
or
Δx = ( Λ / 8π ) ⋅ φ . (4b)
It is obvious that the grating displacement Δx can be determined by measuring the phase
variation φ of the interference signal.
2.2 Wavelength modulation technique and quadrature method for phase detection
In the present study, phase detection is based on the wavelength modulation technique and the
quadrature method. When the LD is driven by an injection current signal S(t), the wavelength
and the amplitude of the laser beam is a function of time. Considering the time-dependent
injection current and the coherence length of the laser diode, the interference signal at the
photodetector (Eq. (3)) can be rewritten as:
I ( t ) ∝ S ( t ) ⋅ [1 + V cos ( 2πΔl λ ( t ) + φ )] , (5)
where V is the visibility of the interference signal. If the driving signal is a square waveform
with the period T, then the LD emits two wavelengths (λ1 and λ2) sequentially in one period.
The sequential interference signal can be expressed as:
I 1 ∝ S1 ⋅ [1 + V cos ( 2πΔl λ1 + φ )] , 0 < t < T 2, (6a)
and
I 2 ∝ S 2 [1 + V cos ( 2πΔl λ2 + φ )] , T 2 < t < T, (6b)
where S1 and S2 are the main intensities of the interference signals. Here we can select a
suitable λ2 = λ1 + Δλ to make a π/2 phase difference between I2 and I1, that is:
  2π 2π    2π 
I 2 ∝ S 2 ⋅ 1 + V cos  Δl − 2
Δλ ⋅ Δl + φ   = S 2 1 + V sin  Δl + φ   , (7)
  λ1 λ1    λ1 
where Δλ = (λ2 − λ1) << λ1, and 4ΔλΔl /λ12 = 1. The interference signals I1 and I2 (Eqs. (6a)
and (7)) are quadrature. By adjusting the DC (S1 and S2) and AC (S1V and S2V) terms, these
two signals can be used to solve the phase difference φ.
2.3 Selection of the wavelengths λ2 and λ1
In order to determine λ2 and λ1 for the 2 signals with π/2 phase difference, we first drive the
LD with a linear increasing injection current i. Because the intensity and wavelength of the
light from the LD are both proportional to the injection current, the simulated interference
signal, shown graphically in Fig. 2, can be expressed as:
I ( i ) = ( S 0 + ms i ) ⋅ [1 + V cos ( 2πΔl (λ 1
+ mλ i ) + φ ) ] , (8)
where ms and mλ are the slopes of the increasing intensity and wavelength, respectively, of the
laser beam which is driven by the injection current. From Fig. 2 we can find the local
neighbor minimum Ia and maximum Ib at ia and ib, respectively. Of course, the phase
difference between Ia and Ib is ~π. We can estimate that the phase difference π/2 will occur at
iab = (ia + ib)/2, and we assume that the wavelengths λ1 and λ2 correspond to the injection
currents ia and iab, respectively. Then we set the injection current at ia for wavelength λ1 and
give the grating a sufficient displacement. As shown in Fig. 3, the intensity of the interference
signal oscillates between the minimum I1min and maximum I1max (see the upper curve in Fig. 3)
because the phase φ increases (or decreases). The minimum I1min and maximum I1max in Eq.
(6a) can be expressed as:
I 1 min = S1 (1 − V ) , (9a)
and
I 1 max = S1 (1 + V ) . (9b)
The main intensity (or DC term) of the interference signal I1 is:
S1 = ( I 1 min + I 1 max ) / 2. (10a)
Similarly, the main intensity S2 of the interference signal I2 (see the lower curve in Fig. 3) can
be given as:
S 2 = ( I 2 min + I 2 max ) / 2. (10b)
In order to determine the phase variation φ, the sequential interference signals in Eqs. (6a) and
(7) can be processed as:
I 1′ = ( I 1 − S1 ) / S1 = V cos ( 2πΔl λ1 + φ ) , (11)
and
I 2′ = ( I 2 − S 2 ) / S2 = V sin ( 2πΔl λ1 + φ ) . (12)
The relationship between the phase variation φ and the modified interference signals is:
φ = tan
−1
( I ′ / I ′ ) − 2πΔl / λ .
2 1 1
(13)
Fig. 2. Simulated interference signal intensity which is a function of the injection current.
Fig. 3. The intensity of the interference signals for the injection current ia (upper curve) and
wavelength λ1 (lower curve) for the injection current iab and wavelength λ2.
Equation (13) indicates that the phase variation can be determined by measuring the
processed interference signals I'1 and I'2. The last term can be ignored if the optical path
difference Δl is constant. Substituting the measured phase variation φ into Eq. (4b), the
grating displacement Δx can be obtained. The curves a and b in Fig. 4 show the Lissajous
patterns of the original (I1 and I2) and modified (I'1 and I'2) interference signals, respectively,
when the grating is given a displacement. It is well known that if the Lissajous pattern is not a
circle, the calculated phase will suffer from the nonlinear error. Even though the curve b is
sufficiently circular to calculate the phase φ, we define the error signal e to improve the
Lissajous circle:
e= I 1′ + I 2′ . (14)
2 2
If I'1 and I'2 have a residual DC, unequal AC terms, or the phase shift is not π/2, the error
signal e will vary with the grating displacement. We can adjust the residual DC, unequal AC
terms, and phase shift by tuning S1, S2, ia, and iab until the error signal e is a constant, and a
much purer Lissajous circle can be obtained.
Fig. 4. Lissajous patterns of (a) the original (I1 and I2), and (b) modified (I'1 and I'2) interference
signals.
3. Performance test
3.1 Experimental setup
The configuration of this method is shown in Fig. 1(a). A laser diode (Hitachi, HL63200G)
with a central wavelength of 635 nm was used as light source and modulated by a 200-Hz
square-wave signal. A temperature controller was used to maintain its temperature at 15° C. A
grating with a 2-μm pitch was mounted on the piezoelectric actuator, and the displacement of
the linear stage was measured. The interference light was received by the photodetector PD,
and the interference signal was processed by a data acquisition (DAQ) card (NI6143) and a
personal computer (PC). Then the phase difference was measured using a PC-based program
generated by Labview (version: 7.0, National Instruments Corporation). The phase resolution
of this program is ~0.01°. All the components of the interferometer were set up on an optical
table, and the room temperature was controlled at 22 °C with air conditioning. To demonstrate
the feasibility of our system, we measured the displacement of a piezoelectric actuator at
difference ranges. To provide long- and short-range displacements, kinds of linear stages were
used, a dual-servo positioning stage (model: XYS-50; Measure control, Inc.), and a
piezoelectric actuator (model: P-611; Physik Instrumente (PI) GmbH). A linear encoder with
a resolution of 4 nm or strain gauge with a resolution of 1 nm was used to verify the
measurement results.
3.2 Millimeter-scale displacement testing
A grating was mounted on a linear stage (XYS-50) with a 1-mm traveling range for long-
range displacement testing. This stage was equipped with a linear encoder which was used to
verify the movement simultaneously, and was operated in a closed-loop configuration for
millimeter traveling range positioning. The stage provided a long forward displacement of ~1
mm at 2 different speeds, 2 and 3.3 μm/s. The measured displacements (red curves) are shown
in Fig. 5. The curves measured by the encoder are offset by a few seconds for convenience of
observation (blue curves). The measurement results obtained with the proposed method
appear to coincide well with those obtained with the encoder. This indicates that our
interferometer is able to measure large displacement (millimeter range) like a commercial
sensor. After several measurements of the linear displacement (~1 mm) and statistical
analysis, the difference in displacement measured by the encoder, and our system was less
than 0.6 μm. We suspect that the discrepancy may result from the fact that the moving
direction of grating might not exactly coincide with the one of the linear encoder, or is
otherwise related to misalignment. By optimizing opto–mechanical design and minimizing the
alignment errors, the discrepancy can be further improved.
Fig. 5. Measurement results for a long displacement of ~1 mm. Red curves: measured
displacements, blue curves: measured by the encoder. Curves are offset by a few seconds for
convenience of observation.
3.3 Micrometer-scale displacement testing

The piezoelectric actuator (P-611) moves the grating in a triangular-wave form with
amplitudes of 5, 10, 20, and 50 μm. These displacements are also simultaneously verified by
the strain gauge sensor which is integrated on the piezoelectric actuator. Figure 6 shows the
measurement results. The red and blue curves indicate the measurement results obtained with
our method and the results obtained using the strain gauge sensor, respectively. The
experimental result of strain gauges is offset by 1 s for convenient observing. From these
experimental results it can be seen that displacements of different magnitudes could be
measured with rather satisfactory precision.
Fig. 6. Measurement results for forward and backward displacement with amplitudes of about
50, 20, 10 and 5 μm.
3.4 Nanometer-scale displacement testing
To verify the measurement capability at nanometric scale, small-range experiments were done
in this study. The piezoelectric actuator (P-611) drove the grating with a step-wise, and the
measurement results are shown in Fig. 7. There are two step sizes, 50 and 25 nm, shown in
the curves. The strain gauge was also used simultaneously to confirm displacement
measurements. The measurement results obtained with our method coincided well with those
obtained using the strain gauge sensor.
Fig. 7. Measurement results for the step-wise motion with step of 50 and 25 nm.
Figure 8 shows the measurement results for the 560 nm and 300 nm displacements with
steps of 10 and 5 nm. The 10-nm displacement is easily observable by the strain gauge (blue
curves) and our system (red curves) in the upper-left inset of Fig. 8. The lower curves and
inset of Fig. 8 show the results of the 5-nm displacement testing. Despite the fact that the
displacement results obtained with our method seem to suffer from low-frequency drift, the 5-
nm displacement still can be observed in our system. We believe that the non-common optical
path configuration caused the drift, which will be discussed in the next section. On the
contrary, the curve of the strain gauge is blurred. These small-range test results indicate that
our system has the capability of measuring nanometer displacements.
Fig. 8. Measurement results for the step-wise motion with steps of 10 and 5 nm.
4. Discussion
4.1 Measurement sensitivity
Based on Eq. (4), the measurement sensitivity s of our system the can be written as:
dφ 8π
s= = . (15)
d Δx Λ
In our experiment, we used a grating with a pitch Λ = 2 μm. From Eq. (15), a measurement
sensitivity s = 0.72°/nm is obtained.
4.2 Measurement resolution and stability
Considering a phase resolution of only 0.01° in the Labview program, the measurement
resolution of the displacement is about dΔx = dφ/s ≈0.01 nm. The phase φ is determined by
the measured intensity of the signal from Eq. (13). Therefore, the resolved intensity
determines the minimum measurable phase. According to the measurement uncertainty
analysis [25], the minimum measurable phase can be written as:
2 2
 ∂φ ′   ∂φ  1
dφ =  ∂I ′ dI  + dI 2′  = ( I ′dI ′ ) 2
+ ( I 1′dI 2′ ) .
2
(16)
 ∂I 2′ I 1′ + I 2′
1 2 1
  
2 2
1
After substituting I'1 and I'2 from Eqs. (11) and (12) into Eq. (16), dφ can be written as:
[( I − S 2 ) dI 1 ] + [ ( I 1 − S1 ) dI 2 ]
2 2
dφ =
2
. (17)
S (I − S1 ) / S1 + S 1 ( I 2 − S 2 ) / S 2
2 2
2 1
Here dI1 and dI2 are the minimum detectable intensity of the detector, and they have the same
magnitude dI = dI1 = dI2. In our experiments, S1 is nearly equal to S2. From Eqs. (11) and (12),
Eq. (17) can be simplified to:
dI
dφ = . (18)
S ⋅V
Here we set the main intensity S = S1 = S2.

To test the general noise levels of the system, the piezoelectric actuator was held
stationary. In this stationary situation, the contributions to the phase variation are only low-
and high-frequency phase noises. The experimental results are shown in Fig. 9. The
measurement results show that the drifting voltage of I1 and I2 was about 300 mV, and the
corresponding drifting phase is about 10°. The drift of these signals may be derived from the
air disturbances of non-common optical path, vibration, thermal drift. The optical path
difference Δl in the last term of Eqs. (6a) and (6b) is the drift source of I1 and I2. The low
frequency noises can be suppressed in the good experimental environment. Not only the low
frequency noises, these curves of I1, I2 and φ in Fig. 9 also suffer from the high frequency
noises. The high-frequency noises generated from inside of system components, such as laser
source, electronic noise, photodetector, DAQ card, are inevitability. In our experimental
situation, the high-frequency noises (dI) of I1, I2 are about 50 mV, the main intensity S = 3700
mV, and visibility V = 0.48. After substituting these minimum detectable intensity and
parameters into Eq. (18), the minimum measurable phase dφ = 0.028 rad (~1.6°) is obtained.
From Eq. (15), the minimum measurable displacement or measurement resolution of our
system is dΔx = dφ/s ≈2 nm.
Fig. 9. (a) Interference signals and (b) phase noises, including high- and low-frequency noises.
4.3 Periodic nonlinearity error analysis

The displacement measurement of our system is based on time-domain quadrature phase
detection (see Eqs. (11)-(13)). Assuming that I'1 and I'2 have a residual DC, unequal AC
terms, and the quadrature phase shift deviates from the ideal π/2, these two quadrature signals
can be expressed as:
I 1′err = V1err cos (φ ) + S1err , (19)
and
I 2′err = V2 err sin ( φ + ε ) + S 2 err , (20)
where V1err and V2err are the unequal AC terms, S1err and S2err are the residual DC terms or
biases, and ε is the phase-shifting error. Here the phase 2πΔl/λ1 is ignored. It is obvious that
the Lissajous patterns of I'1err and I'2err will ellipses, and the calculated phase φerr will suffer
from the nonlinear error δφ:
−1  V sin ( φ + ε ) + S 2 err 
δφ = φerr − φ = tan  2 err  − φ. (21)
 V1err cos (φ ) + S1err 
According to the experimental estimation in our measurement system, the worst case for the
ratio of V2err to V1err is about 1.005, and biases S1err and S2err both are about 0.005. Actually,
the optical phase variation which results from the moving grating will bring about the phase-
shifting error ε. That is the phase-shifting error ε is dependent on the modulation frequency f
and the speed u of the grating and can be given as:
8π u
ε= . (22)
Λ 2f
If the speed of the grating is 1 μm/s and the modulation frequency is 200 Hz, then the phase-
shifting error ε is estimated to be 2°. Obviously, the higher the modulation frequency is, the
smaller the phase-shifting error is. After substituting these parameters into Eq. (21), the
periodic nonlinearity error can be obtained and is shown in Fig. 10. The maximum
nonlinearity phase error is about 1.5° which corresponds to 2 nm of displacement error.
Fig. 10. Periodic nonlinearity error.
4.4 Limitation of measurement speed

The measurement of the optical phase variation is based on the time-domain quadrature
detection. Our PC-based program can solve successfully the continual optical phase variation,
even if the wrapped phase appears in the signal. The high speed moving grating results in the
high variation rate of the optical phase. If the wrapped phase rate is higher than the output
data rate of the PC-based program, the missed data will cause an error of the measured phase,
and limit the maximum measurement speed. According to Eq. (4), the relationship between
the variation rate dφ/dt of the optical phase and the output data rate fODR of the PC-based
program can be written as
dφ 8π d Δx 8π
= = u ≤ π ⋅ fODR . (23)
dt Λ dt Λ
where u stands for the speed of the moving grating. The output data rate fODR of the PC-based
program in our system is about 26 Hz. According to Eq. (23), the limitation of the
measurement speed in our system is estimated to be 6.5 μm/s. We are developing the digital
signal processor to improve the limitation of the measurement speed.
5. Conclusion
A method for displacement measurement by the wavelength phase-shifting grating
interferometer with double diffraction is proposed. In our interferometer, the phase shift is
accomplished by using a wavelength-modulated laser beam passing through an unequal-path-
length optical configuration. We also developed a phase-extraction algorithm for time-domain
quadrature detection to calculate the optical phase variation. The displacement of the grating
is determined by the grating interferometry theorem with the measured phase variation. The
experimental results demonstrate that the measurement resolution and range can reach
nanometer and millimeter levels, respectively. Moreover, the periodic nonlinearity error
caused from the residual DC, unequal AC terms of the interference signals, and the quadrature
phase shift error have been discussed and analyzed.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported in part by the National Science Council, Taiwan, under contract
number NSC 100-2221-E-008-074-MY3.

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Displacement measurement using a wavelength-

phase-shifting grating interferometer

Abstract: A grating interferometer based on the wavelength-modulated

References and links

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the wavelength phase-shifting grating interferometer. The

= 1 + cos ( 2πΔl λ + φ ) , (3)

3.3 Micrometer-scale displacement testing

Here we set the main intensity S = S1 = S2.

4.3 Periodic nonlinearity error analysis

4.4 Limitation of measurement speed

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