Asymmetric polarization-based frequency scanning interferometer.

An asymmetric polarization-based frequency scanning interferometer is proposed using the asymmetric polarimetric method. The proposed system controls the polarization direction of the beam using a polarizer and wave plate, along with a conventional interferometer system. By controlling the wave plate, it is possible to asymmetrically modulate the magnitude of the object and reference beam, which are divided by the polarizing beam splitter. Based on this principle, if the target object consists of both transparent and opaque parts with different polarization characteristics, each part can be measured. After a fast Fourier transform of the acquired interference signal, the shape of the object is obtained by analyzing its spectrum. The proposed system is evaluated in terms of measurement accuracy and noise robustness through a series of experiments to show the effectiveness of the system.