• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.195-201
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• 2002

We propose a new scheme of high-resolution heterodyne interferometer that employs the two-axial mode He-Ne laser with an inter-mode beat frequency of 600~1000 MHz. An electronic RF-heterodyne circuit lowers the beat frequency down to 5 MHz, so that the phase change of the interferometer output is precisely measured with a displacement resolution of 0.1 nanometer without significant loss of dynamic bandwidth. A thermal control scheme is adopted to stabilize the cavity length with ainus to suppress frequency drifts caused by the phenomena of frequency pulling and polarization anisotropy of the two-axial made laser to a stability level of 2 parts in $10^9$. The two-axial mode HeNe laser yields a high output power of 2.0 mW, which allows us to perform multiple measurements of up to 10 machine axes simultaneously.