System and Method for Cylindrical Error Measurement with Interferometry

High precision cylindrical parts have been used frequently in many fields with the development of manufacturing. It is very important to test cylindrical surface precisely. It’s well known that interferometry is an important technique to test the profiles of the aspheric surfaces [1, 2]. Though the cylindrical surface is a kind of aspheric surface, it is single-axial symmetrical and has some particularities, for example, in testing alignment and the removal of the errors of the alignment. In testing the cylindrical surfaces, it is hard to confirm the correct alignment status and there are some alignment errors remaining [3]. Usually the alignment aberrations are big enough and can’t be omitted in much high precision testing. The paper applies a Fizeau interferometer to get standard plane wave and a Computer-generated Hologram (CGH) cylinder Null to get an ideal cylindrical wave-front [4].Then it introduces the ways to align the measuring system and remove the alignment aberrations. The repeatability of the testing system is verified with experiments with a cylindrical lens.