Common-path phase-shifting interferometer with binary grating

An experimental setup for phase extraction of 2D phase distributions is presented. The system uses a common-path interferometer consisting of two windows in the input plane and a translating grating as spatial filter. In the output, interference of the fields associated with replicated images of the input windows is achieved by a proper choice of the windows spacing with respect to the grating period, the focal length of the transforming lens and the wavelength of the coherent illumination employed. Because in this type of grating interferometer a grating is placed as a spatial filter, the phase changes which are needed for phase-shifting interferometry can be easily performed with translations of the grating driven by a linear actuator. Some experimental results are shown. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.