Subnanometer resolution displacement sensor based on a grating interferometric cavity with intensity compensation and phase modulation

摘要

A subnanometer resolution displacement sensor based on a grating interferometric cavity with intensity compensation and phase modulation is proposed and experimentally demonstrated in this paper. The grating interferometric cavity is composed of a frequency-stabilized laser source, a diffraction grating, and a mirror. To realize a subnanometer resolution, the intensity compensation and phase modulation technique are introduced, which are achieved by an intensity compensation light path, three closed placed photodetectors, a processing circuit and a piezoelectric ceramic transducer, and a lock-in amplifier. The intensity compensation technique can improve the stability of the output intensity signal greatly while the phase modulation technique can increase the signal-to-noise ratio dramatically. The detected signal is intensity modulated and processed by a particular arithmetic circuit. Experimental results indicate that the sensitivity of this displacement sensor is 44.75 mVm and the highest resolution can reach 0.017 nm, which is 27 times better than the one without intensity compensation and phase modulation. As a high-performance sensor with immunity to electromagnetic interference, this displacement sensor has potential to be used in nanoscience and technology. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America