Polarization Effects in Heterodyne Interferometry

Abstract A detailed analysis of the polarization effects which lead to nonlinearity in the non-ideal optical heterodyne interferometer is presented. Extensive use is made of the coherency matrix representation by setting up a ‘cross-coherency matrix’ representation. A generalized treatment of periodic phase errors (nonlinearity) is then presented. Individual contributions to the nonlinearity have been characterized as either ‘independent’ or ‘dependent’ phase errors. In the single-pass plane-mirror heterodyne system, to which the approach is applied, phase errors for rotational misalignment of the nominally orthogonal linearly polarized input states, beam splitter leakage, non-orthogonality, ellipticity and the effect of misaligned polarizer-mixer are explicitly considered. The latter effect is found to produce nonlinearity only when in combination with any one of the first three and is therefore a dependent phase error. The nonlinearity arising from ellipticity is identical with that from rotational misa...

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