Precise Measurement of Planeness

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Abstract
Interference methods are reviewed—particularly those developed at the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin—with which the deviations of an optically flat surface from the ideal plane can be measured with a high degree of exactness. One aid to achieve this is the relative methods which measure the differences in planeness between two surfaces. These are then used in the absolute methods which determine the absolute planeness of a surface. This absolute determination can be effected in connection with a liquid surface, or (as done by the authors) only by suitable evaluation of relative measurements between unknown plates in various positional combinations. Experimentally, one uses two- or multiple-beam interference fringes of equal thickness1 or of equal inclination. The fringes are observed visually, scanned, or photographed, and in part several wavelengths or curves of equal density (Äquidensiten) are employed. The survey also brings the following new methods: a relative method, where, with the aid of fringes of superposition, the fringe separation is subdivided equidistantly thus achieving an increase of measuring precision, and an absolute method which determines the deviations of a surface from ideal planeness along arbitrary central sections, without a liquid surface, from four relative interference photographs.

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