Improvements in optical interferometers

Abstract

Abstract 355,911. Optical interferometers. WILLIAMS, W. E., Kildare, Ethelbert Road, Bromley, Kent. July 29, 1930, No. 22886. [Class 97 (i).] In an interferometer employing divisions of the wavefront of the primary light source to produce a number of parallel beams, one of the beams is laterally displaced either once or twice relatively to the next in order to increase the brightness of the interference fringes. In the form shown two beams are derived from contiguous parts of a single beam passing through a vertical slit in a screen 12 after traversing a narrow vertical aperture 10 in a collimator screen, and an achromatic lens 11. The beam is divided into two by two Albrecht rhombs 13, 14, or equivalent optical devices, which also displace the separated beams laterally and then direct them along parallel paths in which are placed the gas chambers 15, 16 and compensating plates (not shown). The beams are re-united by rhombs &c. 17, 18 and pass through the lens 19 of a telescope having a cylindrical eyepiece 20. The interferometer may be used in conj unction with a spectroscope for direct observation of the fringes, the eyepiece 20 being in this case dispensed with, and the fringes focused directly on the vertical slit of the spectroscope.

Inventors

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