Interferometry: NPL flatness

interferometry and gauge length

interferometer, auto collimator.
 INTRODUCTION
 Huygen’s Theory proposes light as wave motion spread
as an electromagnetic wave of sinusoidal form.
 The maximum disturbance of wave is called amplitude
and velocity of transmission is called frequency.
 The higher points of a wave are called Crests and lower
points are called Troughs.
 The distance between two Crests/Troughs is called
Wavelength.
 The time taken by light in covering one wavelength is
called Time Period
Light of a single wavelength is known as
monochromatic light. The term light signifies
the visible and near-visible portions of the
electromagnetic radiation. EX: Laser beam
INTERFEROMETRY:
The phenomenon of interaction of light is called Interference.
Under ordinary conditions, the wave nature of light is not apparent.
But when two waves interact with each other, the wave effect is
visible and it can be made useful for measuring applications.
For example, when light is made to interfere, it produces a pattern
of dark bands which corresponds to a very accurate scale of
divisions.
Use of Interferometry technique enables the determination of size
of end standards(slip gauges & end bars) directly in terms of
wavelength of light source.
Based on this, the wavelength standards have been established in
1960. The meter was once defined as 1650763.73 wavelengths of
the orange light emitted by a source containing krypton- 86 atoms
 PRINCIPLE OF INTERFERENCE:
 When they happen to be in phase, it results into
increased amplitude called Resultant Amplitude. It is
the addition of the amplitudes of the combined rays.
 Hence, if two rays of equal intensity are in phase, they
augment each other and produce increased brightness.
 If rays A and B differ by a phase of 180 ̊, then the
combined result R will be very small, may be zero, if
the amplitudes aA and aB are equal.
 Therefore, if two rays of equal intensity differ in phase
by λ/2, they nullify each other and result into darkness.
If two rays are in same phase, then resulting intensity
will be the sum of two intensity.

If two rays are out of phase, then resulting intensity

will be the difference of two intensity.

If two rays having same amplitude are in same phase,

then resultant will be twice & result will be Bright
spot.

If two rays having same amplitude are out of phase,

then resultant will be zero & result will be Dark spot.
 PROCEDURE TO PRODUCE INTERFERENCE BANDS:

1. Monochromatic light is allowed to pass

through a very narrow slit (S), and then
allowed to pass through the other two
narrow slits (S1 ) and (S2 ), which are
very close to each other.
2. Two separate sets of rays are formed
which pass through one another in the
same medium
3. If path S1 B2 and S2 B2 are exactly equal then the rays on
these paths will be in phase which results in constructive
interference, producing maximum intensity or bright band.
The phenomenon remains same for B1 and B3 .
4. If at the same point D, the ray path difference is equal to half
the wavelength (S2 D1 - S1 D1 = λ/2), it results into an out-of-
phase condition producing zero intensity or a dark band due to
destructive interference. The phenomenon remains the same
for D2 .
5. Thus, a series of bright and dark bands are produced. The dark
bands are called Interference fringes. The central bright band
is flanked on both the sides by dark bands, which are
alternatively of minimum and maximum intensities and are
known as Interference Bands.
N.P.L. FLATNESS INTERFEROMETER
 This interferometer was designed by National Physical Laboratory and
is commercially manufactured by Hilger and Watts Ltd.
 The flatness of any surface is judged by comparing with an optically
flat surface which is generally the base plate of the instrument.
 This instrument essentially consists of a mercury vapour lamp.
 As we are interested in having single monochromatic source of light,
the radiations of the mercury lamp are passed through a green filter.
 The wavelength of the resulting monochromatic radiation is of the
order or 0.0005 mm.
 This radiation is then brought to focus on pinhole in order to obtain
an intense point source of light.
 A mirror is used in order to deflect the light beam through 90°.
 The pinhole is placed in the focal plane of a collimating lens, thus the
radiations out of the lens will be parallel beam of light.
 This beam is directed on the gauge to be tested via an optical flat.
 The fringes formed are viewed directly above by means of a thick glass
plate semi-reflector set at 45° to the optical axis.
 The gauge to be tested is wrung on the base plate whose surface is
finished to a degree comparable to that of the highest quality gauge face.
 As the optical flat is placed above it in a little tilted position, interference
fringes are formed; one between rays reflected from the under surface of
the optical flat and those reflected from the surface of the gauge, and the
other between rays reflected from the under surface of the optical flat
and those reflected from the base plate.
 If the gauge face is flat and parallel to the base plate, then the optical flat
being equally inclined on both the surfaces the fringe pattern from both
the gauge face and the base plate will consist of straight, parallel and
equally spaced fringes as shown in Fig.
 If the gauge face is flat and parallel to the base plate, then the optical flat being equally
inclined on both the surfaces the fringe pattern from both the gauge face and the base
plate will consist of straight, parallel and equally spaced fringes as shown in Fig. 6.22 (a).
 When the gauge is flat but not parallel to the base plate, then straight and parallel
fringes of different pitch above the gauge face as compared with those of the base plate
are seen [Fig. 6.22 (b)].
 In such case, to determine the amount of unparallelism, provision is made to rotate the
base plate by 180° and this method is covered in detail after discussing the various
other possible cases.
 In case taper is present in some other direction, i.e. surface of the gauge is flat but its
surface is inclined to the base plate at some other angle, then fringe pattern obtained is
as shown in Fig. 6.23.
 Here the error is indicated by the amount by which the fringes are out of parallel with
those on the base plate.
 When the gauge surface is convex or concave then fringe pattern as shown in Fig. 6.24 is
obtained, i.e. the fringes on the gauge are curved lines.
 Slight rounding off at the corners of an otherwise generally flat and parallel surface will
give a fringe pattern as shown in Fig. 6.25 having closely curved lines at the ends, and
straight and parallel fringes of equal pitch in the middle
 The pitter- N.P.L Gauge length
interferometer

 This is also called the gauge length interferometer and used for determining
actual dimensions or absolute length of the gauges.
 As the mechanical sub-division of end standards length tends to be laborious
when small lengths are considered, and due to liability of error in that
method, direct measurement interferometer based on the design of N.P.L. is
most commonly used.
 Since this involves very precision work, it is important to see that the physical
conditions surrounding the measuring equipment are standardised and
controlled.
 The standard conditions being temperature of 20°C, barometric pressure of
760 mm of mercury with water vapour at a pressure of 7 mm and containing
0.33% by volume of carbon dioxide.
 In case conditions are different, then correction factors have to be applied.
 The diagrammatic arrangement of the instrument is shown in Fig.
 S is suitable source of light and light form it is brought to focus on the
illuminating aperture in the plate by passing it through a condensing lens.
 This plate is placed at the focal plane of a collimating lens.
 Thus light from this plate acts as a point source of light and after
collimating lens, rays of light in the form of parallel beam of light move
into a constant deviation prism.
 The constant deviation prism disperses the light into its constituent
colours.
 The beams of different colours are thus reflected downwards by the prism
in slightly different directions.
 In case of cadmium source of light, the various colours of beam available
are red, green, blue and violet.
 Any one of these coloured beams can be directed vertically downward on
the gauge and the base plate through the optical flat by slightly rotating
the constant deviation prism about a certain axis.
 The rays reflected at the gauge face and at the face of the
base plate return along the same path approximately as the
incident rays, but their axis is tilted slightly due to inclination
of optical flat and thus brought to focus at some other point
on the plate, where they are incident on a reflecting prism.
 Reflecting prism then reflects the rays into the eyepiece at
normal to these rays.
 The fringe pattern obtained is shown in the field of view in
Fig. 6.28.
 Actually two interference systems are produced.
 One set of fringes is due to the upper surface of the gauge
and the other is due to the base plate’s reflecting surface.
 It is essential that the gauges being calibrated by this method
possess a very high degree of flatness and parallelism.
 Only then the fringe pattern from the gauge and the base plate
will consist of straight, parallel and equally spaced fringes of the
same frequency.
 Generally two fringe patterns cannot be in phase and will be
displaced as shown in Fig. 6.28.
 The amount of this displacement varies for each colour and,
therefore, wavelength of light used.
 The displacement observed a, is expressed as a fraction of the
fringe spacing b, i.e. ‘f = a/b’.
 In order to determine the length of the gauge an estimation of f
is made for each of the four radiations from the cadmium lamp
 Auto Collimator
 Autocollimator is an optical instrument that is used
to measure small angular differences.
This device is very sensitive to change in angles and
provides a very accurate measurement of angular
differences.
 It is basically a combination of an infinity telescope
and a collimator.
 Autocollimators are mainly used to align optical
components and measure optical and mechanical
deflections.
Working Principle:

 When a beam of light rays coming out of a monochromatic light

source is made to fall on a diverging lens and made parallel.
 To make the light ray parallel, the light source should be kept at
the focus of the diverging lens.
 After that, if these parallel rays are made to fall on reflecting
surface. then the rays reflect back and travel in the same path
but in the opposite direction and converges at the light source
by passing through the converging lens.
 Now, if the reflecting surface is tilted by an angle theta ( θ )
then the reflected ray makes an angle 2 theta ( 2θ ) with the
incident ray
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6BfT7rhWQtM
Parts Of Autocollimator:
Light Source: Light Source is used to generate the light rays so that it reaches
the reflector.
Reflecting Surface: It is the surface that acts as a workpiece for the
autocollimator. Using the autocollimator, the angle of tilt of this reflecting
surface is to be measured. It reflects the parallel light rays coming through
objective lens.
Diverging Lens: The diverging lens which is also known as objective lens is used
to paralellize the light rays coming through the beam splitter so that parallel
light rays reach the reflector.
Beam Splitter: The beam splitter is used to split the light rays and direct it
towards the objective lens.
Target graticule: The light rays after getting reflected reach this target graticule
and the distance between incident and reflected ray is traced in this target
graticule.
Micrometer Microscope:
It is used to see the points of incident and reflected ray in the target graticule
clearly and measure the distance between them.
Working of Autocollimator:

• In autocollimators, the reflective surface is the surface whose

inclination is to be measured using this instrument. the distance
between the source of light & the reflected ray in the focal plane
is measured using a micrometer microscope.
• First, the light source is illuminated, & the rays of the light line
are extracted from the intersection points of the cross line target
gratitude, which is placed in the focal plane of the objective lens.
• After that, the beam of the beam reaches the beam splitter, and
the v ray beam is the gate that will direct the light rays towards
the objective lens.
• The objective lens will parallel the light rays, & the light rays will
move towards the reflectors.
Case 1: Reflector is perpendicular to ray of light. When
the parallel light rays reach the reflector and the
reflector is perpendicular to light rays then the light rays
will be reflected back to their original paths.
These light rays are then brought to focus in the plane of
the target graticule coincident with the intersection of
cross lines of the graticule.
Some portion of reflected light passes straight through
the beam splitter and hence the return image of the
target cross line is therefore visible through the
eyepiece thus operating as telescope focused at infinity.
Case 2: Reflector is tilted at some angle
If the reflector is tilted at some angle, the parallel light rays reflect from
the reflector at an angle double the angle of tilt. After the reflection, the
light rays are focused in the plane of the target graticule but linearly
displaced from the intersection of cross line by a distance of 2 * (angle of
tilt) * (focal length of the objective lens).

The linear displacement of the graticule image is measured by an eyepiece

graticule and a micrometer microscope or an electronic detector system
based on whether visual or digital autocollimator used.

Most autocollimators are calibrated so that there is no need to

convert the distance measured into the angle of inclination. This is
converted in the autocollimator itself and the angle of inclination
can be read directly in the autocollimator.
Applications of Autocollimator:
1. Checking straightness of machine tool slide ways.
2. Measuring very small angles.
3. Checking parallelism.
4. Checking squareness of column to base.
5. Checking flatness of bed plates and surface
tables.
6. Measuring very small displacements.
7. Checking small linear displacements
Advantages of Autocollimators:
1) It has very high accuracy.
2) It can measure wide range angle.
3) It is very easy to set up and operate.
4) Calibration traceable to international standards.
5) It Can be used to see the result visually or electronically i.e in
a computer screen.
6) Wide range of accessories and levels available.
Disadvantages of Autocollimator:
7) Maintenance is required regularly.
8) It is time consuming.
9) It requires sample cutting and processing for tracing by the
detector.