Length measurement based on multi-wavelength interferometry using numerous stabilized frequency modes of an optical comb

Abstract The electro-optic comb (EO comb) with a relatively wide mode spacing of 25 GHz can be resolved into individual frequency modes with a commercially available high-resolution spectrometer. The EO comb has numerous discrete frequency modes, which can serve as a light source for a monochromatic laser interferometer to realize the meter. In this study, a method for measuring the absolute distances based on the multi-wavelength interferometer principle is proposed and demonstrated by simultaneously implementing 102 monochromatic laser interferometers using an EO comb. A phase shifting technique was used to determine the phase for each frequency mode by precisely translating a reference mirror with a constant interval. The phases of the interference signals for 102 stabilized individual frequency modes were measured by applying the model-based analysis on the phase-shifted interference signals. The absolute distance can be determined using phase values of a wavelength set corresponding to five to seven randomly selected frequency modes. In this study, the absolute distances for round-trip distances of 166 mm and 1316 mm were measured and the measurement uncertainty of each distance was evaluated. Through the uncertainty analysis of the distance measurement, the combined uncertainties of the measured distances in a short and long ranges were evaluated to be 30.1 nm and 211.1 nm, respectively. In addition, for each distance, the consistent measurement results of absolute distances were obtained through four different wavelength sets, which show the flexibility of wavelength selection in this work.