The objective of this paper is to describe a novel method for phase extraction from multiple-beam Fizeau interferograms with arbitrary phase shifts. The approach begins with applying FFT method to estimate the phase shifts and then utilizes least-squares iterative algorithm to extract phase and phase shifts simultaneously. If the spatial carrier frequency of the fringes is high enough to separate the phase of the first-order maximum in the Fourier domain, the proposed method requires only two iterative cycles to accurately extract phase information from seven multiple-beam Fizeau interferograms with arbitrary phase shifts. Numerical simulations and experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. A comprehensive analysis of the influences of systematic errors (spatial carrier frequency, reflectivity coefficient, and random noise) on the evaluation of phase shifts and phase is presented. The method has applications in high precision interferometry.
© 2008 Optical Society of America
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