Increasing the Sensitivity of the Michelson Interferometer through Multiple Reflection

Michelson interferometry has been one of the most famous and popular optical interference system for analyzing optical components and measuring optical metrology properties. Typical Michelson interferometer can measure object displacement with wavefront shapes to one half of the laser wavelength. As testing components and devices size reduce to micro and nano dimension, Michelson interferometer sensitivity is not suitable. The purpose of this study is to design and develop the Michelson interferometer using the concept of multiple reflections. This thesis proposes a new and novel design for a multiple reflection interferometer, where the number of reflections does not affect the quality of the interference. Theoretically we show that more than 1000 reflections can be achieved. Experimental results of greater than 100 reflections are presented in this thesis.