Two Beam Interferometer

Many physical occurrences can be described in terms of waves. The emission of radio waves and the emission of light waves from light sources are all examples of this phenomena. If we overlap these waves, we can observe the phenomena known as interference. It is sometimes much easier to view the desired interference effects by introducing a disturbance into the process. Often, we carefully guide the interference to obtain highly accurate measurements of physical sizes. These physical sizes are determined by the path difference of numerous light beams (two in this case). Distances, angles, velocity, geometrical forms, flatness and many other measurements can be determined by interference and compared to the wavelength of the light source.

In turn, an interferometer with known geometrical data can be configured to determine the wavelength of a light source and analyze the spectral characteristics of this source.

This interferometer, assembled out of Microbench components, can be used to study the basic principles of two beam interference, perform exact measurements and can be expanded for other applications.


• Rigid setup


• To be combined with laserset (G064016000, please look at section microbench sets). Suitable laser are described in chapter "Instruments", section "Light Sources and Laser".