Air wedge with variable refractive index for precise laser beam steering in a small range.

This paper provides the results of work on a new method for metrological laser beam steering for the purpose of angular stabilization. Frequency stabilized metrological lasers are used for interference measurements of length and angle. Angular deviation of the beam may cause cosine errors when measuring displacements. This paper presents a method for metrological laser beam deflection with an air wedge of variable refractive index. The change in the index is achieved by changing the air pressure in the wedge volume. The implemented system produced a range of angular displacements of the 0.1 mrad (10  rad; 100 μrad) beam with a resolution of 10  rad.