A NOVEL ELECTRONICALLY SCANNED WHITE-LIGHT INTERFEROMETER USING A MACH-ZEHNDER APPROACH

A theoretical analysis and experimental evaluation of a novel Mach-Zeh nder interferometer (MZI), used as a recovery interferometer in an ele ctronically scanned white-light interferometer is reported. This modif ied version of a MZI has the advantages of being very simple and compa ct, with high stability and does not introduce any spatial ''misoverla pping'' of the beams, In addition, since only one beamsplitter is empl oyed in the interferometer (instead of the usual two used in a convent ional MZI), the system is relatively easy to implement and at low cost . Furthermore, this configuration can be simply set to cover a wide ra nge of optical path difference values by simply changing the angle and position of one of the mirrors. This gives the interferometer the adv antage of being easily adapted for a range of different measurement ap plications.