Interferometric 2D small angle generator for autocollimator calibration

Abstract

Small angle generators are simple devices for providing small angles traceable to the definition of the SI-unit radian. The most accurate ones use a laser interferometer for measurement of angular displacement. Small angle generators used for autocollimator calibration usually create angles around a single axis. A two-directional angle generator would be preferable, as it could more efficiently reveal artefacts related to angular displacement across both axes, such as orthogonality of the autocollimator's measuring axes. Characterizing errors depending on one axis only would also be easier, as the setup needs to be aligned only once for studying both axes of the autocollimator. We describe a novel interferometric two-directional small angle generator which we have built and tested for autocollimator calibration. The range is '±1000′′ for both axes. The estimated standard uncertainty for full range is 0.0036′′ for the horizontal and 0.0053′′ for the vertical direction.