Applications of Programmable Interferometry

The advent of automatic data processing for interferometry greatly reduced the complexity of interferometrie testing, thereby significantly increasing its usage both within and outside of the optics community. A great many of these new applications require special data processing and output not normally used for testing lenses. To address these new measurement problems Zygo has developed software for interferometry that allows users to easily develop their own measurement routines. The software is a version of the BASIC programming language to which commands necessary to do interferometry have been added. This software is resident in a proprietary processor that has been interfaced with a commercial Fizeau interferometer (the Zygo MKIV). This programming language has features that allow programming of both custom measurement routines and complex, menu driven measurement programs.1