Point diffraction interferometer based on a silicon nitride waveguide spherical wave source

A point diffraction interferometer based on silicon nitride waveguide (WG-PDI), adopting a silicon nitride waveguide spherical wave source (WG-SWS) with Si substrate and SiO2 cladding, is proposed for spherical surface testing. The WG-SWS is used to overcome the drawbacks of the existing spherical wave sources, which can generate high accuracy and high numerical aperture spherical reference wave. In this paper, the theory of the WG-PDI is described, and the possible errors introduced by the device are analyzed. In addition, the lateral deviation between the curvature center of the test wave and the curvature center of the reference wave cannot be eliminated in the reflected configuration of the pinhole diffraction interferometer. After analyzing the influence of the systematic error introduced by the lateral deviation, the semi-reflective film was coated on the output facet of the waveguide spherical wave source to realize point diffraction interference without lateral deviation. Finally, the surface error of a spherical surface was measured by WG-PDI. The experimental results agree well with those measured by the ZYGO interferometer.