scope:

This Standard establishes requirements and methods for the specification, evaluation, setup, and use of laser interferometers. This Standard will explicitly discuss only single-pass optics and a single axis of linear displacement measurement.

The Standard is currently limited to ionized gas laser interferometer systems. Only single-color lasers will be considered in this edition of the Standard. Single color will include both homodyne systems and heterodyne systems (see Nonmandatory Appendix E) where all operating frequencies lie within a Doppler-broadened frequency band associated with one specific atomic transition or Zeeman multiplet. Diode laser systems, chirp systems, and two-color interferometers may be included in future editions of this Standard. It should be noted that the folded common path comparison technique of this Standard could be used to compare any of the above systems to a standard He-Ne laser interferometer.

Testing of laser interferometers as described in this Standard has bearing on a number of other standards, such as ASME B89.4.19, ASME B5.54, ASME B5.57, ISO 230-1, ISO 230-2, ISO 230-3, and ISO 230-6 (see references [1-7] in section 7).