Multi-DOF Incremental Optical Encoder with Laser Wavelength Compensation

This study used a reflective diffraction grating as the medium to develop a multi-DOF incremental optical encoder for motion stage. The optical encoder can measure three angular displacements, roll, yaw and pitch of the motion stage simultaneously, as well as the horizontal straightness and linear displacement, summed to five DOF errors of motion stage by only using the positive and negative first-order diffracted light. The grating diffraction theory, Doppler effect, and optical interference technique were used. Two quadrant photodetectors were used to measure the changes in three-dimensional space of diffraction direction of diffracted light, in order to construct a multi-DOF incremental optical encoder. Considering the working stability of a laser diode and preventing the influence of the zeroth-order diffracted light returning to the laser diode, an additional optical isolation system was designed and a wavelength variation monitoring module was created. The compensation for the light source wavelength variation could be 0.001 nm. The multi-DOF verification results showed that the roll error is ±0.7/60 arcsec, the standard deviation is 0.025 arcsec; the yaw error is ±0.7/30 arcsec, the standard deviation is 0.05 arcsec; the pitch error is ±0.8/90 arcsec, the standard deviation is 0.18 arcsec, the horizontal straightness error is ±0.5/250 μm, the standard deviation is 0.05 μm and the linear displacement error is ±1/20000 μm, the standard deviation is 12 nm.