• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.117-123
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• 2023

The size of an optical surface can significantly affect the performance of an optical system, and high spatial frequency errors have a greater impact. Therefore, it is crucial to measure the surface figure error with high frequency. To address this, a new method called rotational prism stitching interferometer (RPSI) is proposed in this study. The RPSI is a type of stitching interferometer that enhances spatial resolution, but it differs from conventional stitching interferometers in that it does not require the movement of either the mirror tested or the interferometer itself to obtain sub-aperture interferograms. Instead, the RPSI uses a beam expander and a rotating Dove prism to select particular sub-apertures from the entire aperture. These sub-apertures are then stitched together to obtain a full-aperture result proportional to the square of the beam expander's magnification. The RPSI's effectiveness was demonstrated by measuring a 40 mm diameter spherical mirror using a three-magnification beam expander and comparing the results with those obtained from a commercial interferometer. The RPSI achieved surface testing results with nine times higher sampling density than the interferometer alone, with a small difference of approximately 1 nm RMS.