Lasers from the standards laboratory to the factory floor

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Abstract
The lasers used as national and international standards of length and wavelength are complex mechanical/electro-optical instruments with medium term stability and reproducibility approaching 1 part in 1011. Interferometry with simpler stabilised laser sources is an accepted technique for accurate dimensional measurement. The calibration of material length standards, as well as the determination of other important physical quantities, involves the use of laser interferometry. On the factory floor, while it would be an exaggeration to say that lasers are widely used, they play an increasingly important role in measurement, calibration and control. The author is not seeking to review comprehensively the field of lasers in measurement; instead, he tries to show how they form all the links in the chain of traceability from the realisation of the metre, the SI unit of length, to precise industrial measurement.