A Real-Time Measurement Method of Air Refractive Index Based on Special Material Etalon

Abstract

In the precise displacement measurement based on laser interferometry, the measurement technology for the refractive index of air is widely used to improve the measurement accuracy. However, the existing measurement method of the refractive index of air based on direct measurement is not easy to realize in practical work because of its complex measurement principle and the huge volume of the measurement device; while the measurement accuracy and speed based on the indirect method cannot adapt to the real-time, fast and accurate measurement requirements of industrially changing environments, resulting in distortion of the results. In this study, a measurement method of the refractive index of air based on a special material etalon is proposed. The method enables rapid and direct measurement of the air refractive index when the environment changes and it is given the realization process. Finally, the experimental results show that the deviation between this method and the modified Edlen formula is about 2.5 × 10−7, and that this method can quickly reflect the changes of the environment, which prove the correctness of this method and its ability manage rapid environmental responses. This method is worth popularizing in industrial measurement.

Keywords

• metrology
• precision measurement
• air refractive index
• wavelength correction