Correction of phase extraction error in phase-shifting interferometry based on Lissajous figure and ellipse fitting technology

The accuracy of phase-shifting interferometers (PSI) is crippled by nonlinearity of the phase shifter and instability of the environment such as vibration and air turbulence. A general algorithm, utilizing Lissajous figures and ellipse fitting, of correcting the phase extraction error in the phase shifting interferometry is described in this paper. By plotting N against D, where N and D represent the numerator and denominator terms of the phase extraction function (i.e. an arctangent function) respectively, a Lissajous ellipse is created. Once the parameters of the ellipse are determined by ellipse fitting, one can transform the ellipse to a unit circle (ETC). Through this process the phase extraction error caused by random phase shift errors can be corrected successfully. Proposed method is noniterated, adapts to all phase shifting algorithms (PSAs), and has high accuracy. Some factors that may affect the performance of proposed method are discussed in numerical simulations. Optical experiments are implemented to validate the effectiveness of proposed algorithm. (C)2015 Optical Society of America