Critical alignments in plane mirror interferometry

Each axis of a plane mirror interferometer has three associated measurement vectors: the interferometer beam, mirror normal, and axis of measurement. The transducer axis of a plane mirror interferometer target is the mirror normal. This contrasts with a retroflector for which the transducer axis is the interferometer beam. The classical cosine error in x-y plane mirror interferometry is removed by the orienting the mirror normals in the travel plane. The axes do not have to be orthogonal to eliminate cosine error. © 1993.