Measurement of Birefringence, Dispersion and Line Splitting for Biaxial Crystals by Double-layer Interferometer

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Abstract
The fringes of a double-layer interferometer containing a birefringent plate, cut from a biaxial crystal, are split into two separate components belonging to the ordinary and extraordinary waves whose refractive indices have a difference determining the component separation. The dependence of the intensity ratio of the resolved components upon the angle of ray propagation in the crystal is used to identify the axes of a biaxial crystal like muscovite mica. A fringe count with a rotated sample accurately determines its optical thickness from which the absolute values of the refractive indices are deduced. The sensitivity of the double-layer interferometer to dispersion effects is so high that a birefringence dispersion is measurable and either the anisotropy of the atomic number density or the splitting of the characteristic spectral line is detectable.

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