A High-Resolution Heterodyne Interferometer using Beat Frequency between Two-Axial Modes of a HeNe Laser

2-종 모드 레이저를 이용한 고분해능 헤터로다인 간섭계

We propose a new scheme of high-resolution heterodyne interferometer that employs the two-axial mode He-Ne laser with an inter-mode beat frequency of 600-1000 MHz. An electronic RF-heterodyne circuit lowers the beat frequency down to 5 MHz, so that the phase change of the interferometer output is precisely measured with a displacement resolution of 0.1 nanometer without significant loss of dynamic bandwidth. A thermal control scheme is adopted to stabilize the cavity length with aims to suppress frequency drifts caused by the phenomena of frequency pulling and polarization anisotropy of the two-axial mode laser to a stability level of 2 parts in $10^9$. The two-axial mode HeNe laser yields a high output power of 2.0 mW, whlch allows us to perform multiple measurements of up to 10 machine axes simultaneously.