Rayleigh interferometer

Rayleigh interferometer at the National Bureau of Standards

In optics, a Rayleigh interferometer is a type of interferometer which employs two beams of light from a single source. The two beams are recombined after traversing two optical paths, and the interference pattern after recombination allows the determination of the difference in path lengths.[1]

## Contents

* 1 Principle of Operation
* 2 Advantages and disadvantages
* 3 See also
* 4 References

## Principle of Operation

Collimated coherent light passing through two tubes with different refraction index gases, then an imaging lens creates the interferogram.

Light from a source (left) is collimated by a lens and split into two beams using slits. The beams are sent through two different paths and pass through compensating plates. They are brought to a focus by a second lens (bottom) where an interference pattern is observed to determine the optical path difference in terms of wavelengths of the light.

## Advantages and disadvantages

The advantage of the Rayleigh interferometer is its simple construction. Its drawbacks are (i) it requires a point or line source of light for good fringe visibility, and (ii) the fringes must be viewed with high magnification.[2]

## See also

* List of types of interferometers

## References

1. ↑ Busch, Kenneth W. (1990). "§6.6.5 The Rayleigh interferometer". Multielement detection systems for spectrochemical analysis. New York: Wiley. p. 231. ISBN 0-471-81974-3. https://books.google.com/books?id=9H0W1J-Rku4C&pg=PA231.
2. ↑ Hariharan, P. (2007). Basics of interferometry (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Elsevier Academic Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0123735898.

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