A displacement sensor combining cavity tuning of a laser with a piezoelectric transducer's subdivision technique for a bidirectional sampling on the

rising and falling flanks

Zhengqi Zhao, Shulian Zhang, Song Zhang, Yidong Tan, and Yan Li Citation: Rev. Sci. Instrum. 82, 115001 (2011); doi: 10.1063/1.3658200 View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3658200 View Table of Contents: http://rsi.aip.org/resource/1/RSINAK/v82/i11 Published by the American Institute of Physics.

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REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS 82, 115001 (2011)

A displacement sensor combining cavity tuning of a laser with a piezoelectric transducers subdivision technique for a bidirectional sampling on the rising and falling anks
Zhengqi Zhao, Shulian Zhang,a) Song Zhang, Yidong Tan, and Yan Li
State Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments, Department of Precision Instruments and Mechanology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

(Received 24 August 2011; accepted 13 October 2011; published online 1 November 2011) A displacement sensor combining cavity tuning of a laser with a piezoelectric transducers subdivision technique is presented. Because of the low gain, the measuring range of the displacement sensor based on the orthogonally polarized dual-frequency HeNe laser at 633 nm is limited. The gain coefcient is proportional to the cube of the wavelength, so the HeNe laser at 1.15 m is adopted in research. A subdivision technique using a piezoelectric transducer enhances the resolution and the bidirectional sampling of the actuated voltage on its rising and falling anks effectively amends the hysteresis and nonlinearity effect. The displacement sensor achieves the resolution of 10 nm in the range of 100 mm. 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3658200]
I. INTRODUCTION

Displacement is one of the most fundamental parameters in physics. According to different theories, there are two major categories of high-precision displacement measurement: the electrical method and the optical method. Electrical devices are compact and cheap, but the linear measurement range is relatively small. Due to the traceability to the wavelength, applications of laser technology are the most widely used optical method,1, 2 and a frequency stabilization system is used to achieve high precision. The dual-frequency laser interferometer is a good example because it provides the large measuring range and a high resolution.3, 4 However, zero shifts always occur even in laboratory environment, because the measuring optical path is exposed in the air. Although the laser frequency stabilization achieves high precision for the wavelength, the measuring system is still sensitive to the air disturbance. A solution is to simplify the structure and to avoid measurements with the optical path exposed to the air. So we developed a displacement sensor based on cavity tuning of the orthogonally polarized dual-frequency HeNe laser at 633 nm.5 The key point of this method is that the laser acts as a sensor as well as a light source. The structure is simplied and no optical path is exposed in the air. This displacement sensor is mainly based on the theories of frequency splitting, mode competition, and cavity tuning of a laser. The change of cavity length, which equals to the displacement of one of the cavity mirrors, can be calculated by the cavity tuning curves. The displacement sensor achieves the resolution of 79 nm for a measurement range of 12 mm, with advantages of linearity, self calibration, and without a frequency stabilization system. However, the measuring range and stability are restricted by the gain of the medium. So we chose the HeNe laser at 1.15 m considering the higher gain. With the help of a new
a) Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail:

signal processing and with piezoelectric transducers subdivision technique, the resolution and the measurement range of this improved displacement sensor reaches 10 nm for a measurement range of 100 mm. The performance is much better and all the merits are reserved.
II. MEASUREMENT SYSTEM

zsl-dpi@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn. 0034-6748/2011/82(11)/115001/3/$30.00

The schematic structure of the displacement sensor is shown in Fig. 1. A half-intracavity laser is composed of a concave output mirror M, a cats eye reector CER, and a HeNe laser discharge tube T. All parameters of the discharge tube T are selected through a series of experiments. W is the window plate with the anti-reection coating on both surfaces. Q is a quartz plate which is obliquely placed to keep a certain angle between the crystal axis and the laser axis. With this setup, two orthogonal polarized linear beams are generated. According to the crystal optics, we can call them o-light and e-light separately. The frequency difference can be adjusted by the rotation of the quartz plate. PZT is a piezoelectric transducer, and ROD is the rod moving in axial direction in a sleeve. CER, PZT, and ROD are mounted together. PZT is actuated by a triangular voltage. So CER performs a reciprocating motion in the axial direction and the cavity length is modulated. PBS is a Wollaston prism used to separate two orthogonal polarized linear beams. D1 and D2 are two photoelectrical detectors. The output consists of two beams from M, separated by PBS and then projected on D1 and D2. CER is composed of a convex lens and a concave mirror. There are anti-reection coatings on both surfaces of the convex lens and a high reective coating on the left side of the concave mirror as shown in Fig. 1. The focal length of the convex lens, the radius of curvature of the concave mirror, and the distance between the convex lens and the concave mirror are all equal. A normal incident paraxial beam will be reected back by CER along the entrance way. Even for the obliquely incident paraxial beam (the tilt angle is small), CER can still provide high parallelism for the incident and reected
2011 American Institute of Physics

82, 115001-1

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115001-2

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Rev. Sci. Instrum. 82, 115001 (2011)

FIG. 1. Schematic structure of displacement sensor.

beam; however, that is impossible for any traditional laser resonator mirror. That is the reason why the CER used as a resonator mirror can improve the laser stability. If there is a tiny vibration in the process of the displacement measurement, the application of a CER can reduce the destructive inuence.6
III. EXPERIMENTAL METHOD

The reason for using a HeNe laser at 1.15 m is revealed by the laser theory. The active medium of the HeNe laser is mainly Doppler broadened, so the line shape function gD (, 0 ) is in the form of a Gaussian function. When the frequency equals to the central frequency 0 , gD (, 0 ) gets the maximum:7 g Dmax = m 2 k B T
1/2

(1)

In Fig. 2, a pulse is generated at the position where the intensity of o-light equals to that of e-light. The pulses are used to count the displacement and the pulse equivalent is /4. The sequence of o-light and e-light is opposite when the PZT moves in the opposite direction. The phenomena can be used for judgement of the direction by logic algorithm in the digital circuit. The cavity tuning curves are deviated from the Gauss shape. Numerical calculation of Lamb theory reveals that the distortion of the cavity tuning curves is a combined action of self-saturation effects and cross-saturation effects.8, 9 With the help of CER, the output laser keeps steady when the cavity length changes by 100 mm. So a measuring range of 100 mm is achieved. As it is widely known, there is hysteresis and nonlinearity between the actuated voltage and the elongation of a PZT, and the hysteresis and creep properties of a PZT are drawbacks.10, 11 The creep of a PZT disappears after several hundred seconds after powering on, but the hysteresis and nonlinearity still exist. To weaken the adverse impact in the range of /4, a subdivision method is implemented by the systemic sampling of both anks of the triangular wave voltages. As shown in Fig. 2, the laser cavity length is the same at the systemic sampling positions: position A and position B. The

where is the wavelength, m is the atomic mass, kB is the Boltzmann constant, and T is the temperature. When equals to 0 , the gain coefcient G is G= n 2 A21 8 c2 m 2 k B T
1/2

3 ,

(2)

where n is the inverted population density, is the velocity of atoms, and A21 is the spontaneous emission rate. Equation (2) shows that the gain coefcient G is proportional to 3 . It means that the gain of the laser will be higher for a longer wavelength for the same active medium. Higher gain promises better stability and longer displacement measurement range, so the HeNe laser at 1.15 m is a better choice as a displacement sensor. During the displacement measurement, the PZT is actuated by a high-frequency triangular wave voltage. High pass ltered voltage signals proportional to the intensities of olight and e-light are shown in Fig. 2.

FIG. 2. Voltage signals after high-pass lter.

FIG. 3. Hysteresis and nonlinearity testing of PZT.

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115001-3

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Rev. Sci. Instrum. 82, 115001 (2011)

multiplier. By monitoring the change of actuated voltages at the positions where the intensity of o-light equals to that of e-light, subdivision in the range of 288 nm is realized. With an 8-bit AD converter, the resolution is 1 nm.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

Comparing experiments are implemented in both long and short range. In the range of 100 mm, the linear motion of the translation stages is measured simultaneously by the sensor system and a dual-frequency laser interferometer (Agilent 5529A). In the range of 288 nm, displacement of a micro-moving platform (PI 762.2L) is measured by the sensor system. The results are shown in Fig. 4. The linearity in the range of 100 mm is 7 106 , and the resolution of 10 nm is realized.
V. CONCLUSIONS

FIG. 4. Comparing experiments with laser interferometer and micro-moving platform.

To conclude, a displacement sensor combining cavity tuning of a laser with a piezoelectric transducers subdivision technique is investigated. It has the merits of linearity, self calibration, and the simple structure which make the sensor system less sensitive to the environmental disturbance than a laser interferometer. A cats eye reector is used to improve the laser stability and a measuring range of 100 mm is achieved. The piezoelectric transducers subdivision technique is implemented. Bidirectional sampling of actuated voltage on its rising and falling anks amends the hysteresis and nonlinearity effect and the subdivision resolution reaches 10 nm. The displacement sensor can measure the dimensions of precision work pieces such as MEMS, and the method of cavity tuning of a laser and the piezoelectric transducers subdivision technique can be used in other measurement elds.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

corresponding actuated voltages VA and VB are sampled. VA and VB should be the same if there is no hysteresis or nonlinearity, but in fact they are slightly different from each other. To make the amendment, the mean value of VA and VB is used to represent the position A (also the position B). The effectiveness of this method is based on the characteristics of the PZT. So, the PZT used in the sensor system is tested as shown in Fig. 3. The PZT is in an open-loop control and the elongation is tested by microchip a Nd:YAG laser feedback interferometer.12 The solid line in Fig. 3 is acquired by calculating the mean value of the actuated voltages, which are sampled at the systemic position where the intensity of olight equals to that of e-light on the rising and falling anks separately. In the range of /4, that is, 288 nm, the nonlinearity is 1.7% and 2.4% when the triangular wave voltages are on the rising ank and on the falling ank separately. With the method of bidirectional sampling, the nonlinearity lowers to 0.9%. The nonlinearity is signicantly improved, and the slope of the solid line in Fig. 3 is the elongation-voltage

The authors are indebted to Matthias Dilger for polishing work of this paper. We acknowledge the nancial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 60827006 60723004.
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1 D.

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