Unstable resonator alignment based on the fringe analysis

Abstract The existing cavity mirrors alignment method aligns cavities according to the symmetry of the near-field interference fringes of the guided lights by the unstable resonator. Its precision is restricted due to the lack of objective criterion for the fringe symmetry. This article proposes a high-precision cavity mirrors alignment method using the grey projection of fringe patterns as a solution to the problem. First, vertical and horizontal grey projection on the concerned fringe patterns; then an evaluation function for the cavity mirrors alignment is established using the distances between peak/valley values of all the levels in the projection curve as variables; finally, the function value is employed to characterize the fringe symmetry and thus to provide an objective criterion for the alignment effect of the stable resonator cavity mirrors. Experiments show that the proposed method is able to give effective evaluation for the symmetry of the near-field interference fringes of the guided lights and improve the alignment precision greatly.