page_title: Air-wedge shearing interferometer
section_title: Alignment
hierarchical_section_title: Air-wedge shearing interferometer / Alignment
caption_attribution_description: English: Figure 3. Example of air-wedge interferometer
context_page_description: The air-wedge shearing interferometer is probably the simplest type of interferometer designed to visualize the disturbance of the wavefront after propagation through a test object. This interferometer is based on utilizing a thin wedged air-gap between two optical glass surfaces and can be used with virtually any light source, even with non-coherent white light.
context_section_description: To minimize image aberrations the angle plane of the glass wedges has to be placed orthogonal to the angle plane of the air-wedge. Because intensity of Fresnel reflections from a glass surface are polarization and angle dependent, it is necessary to keep the air-wedge plane nearly perpendicular to the incident beam (±5deg) to minimize instrumentally induced intensity variation. This is very important when coupling the air-wedge interferometer to imaging optics. The air-wedge interferometer has a very simple design and requiring only 2 standard BK7 glass wedges and 1 mirror holder (Fig.3).
caption: Figure 3. Example of air-wedge interferometer.
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