Method of making mosaic gratings by using a two-color heterodyne interferometer containing a reference grating

We propose and demonstrate a two-color heterodyne interferometric method for making a perfect mosaic of two planar gratings that can substitute for a single and larger grating without introducing wavefront aberration at any wavelength. The lateral and longitudinal phase errors are separated and eliminated by use of two wavelengths in the interferometry. The accuracy of the phase difference measurement is improved by this heterodyne scheme. The method ensures that the lateral gap between the two subaperture gratings is an integer multiple of the grating period. For a pair of 0.72 mu m period gratings we experimentally achieved a lateral alignment error of less than 1% of the grating period. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.