A spatial light modulator, using a liquid crystal display (LCD), has been developed to be implemented in a measurement system which is based on the heterodyne interferometry. This interferometric device can be applied to the study of the mean roughness of reflective objects and phase distributions in transparent objects. An infinite moving grating is simulated on the LCD spatial modulator, on a screen with 128 x 240 pixels, which is handled by a microcontroller program in which the direction and velocity of the displacement, and also the fill factor and spatial period, can be defined. We show our first experimental results using this modified heterodyne interferometer to measure the profile of transparent and reflective objects.

Date Published: 31 August 2005
PDF: 5 pages
Proc. SPIE 5875, Novel Optical Systems Design and Optimization VIII, 58750Q (31 August 2005);

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5875:
Novel Optical Systems Design and Optimization VIII
Jose M. Sasian; R. John Koshel; Richard C. Juergens, Editor(s)