Collimation Testing with Shearing Interferometry

Collimation of laser beams is a fundamentally essential task for various optical applications. Testing of the collimation is therefore of significance as well, and shearing interferometry is often employed for such tasks. In this example, we demonstrate how to build up a shearing interferometer and to use it for testing the collimation. By varying the beam collimation system – in this example, the distance between the two lenses – we observe the interference fringes from the shearing interferometry.