In this thesis, a Michelson interferometer with broadband optical sources was characterized and were investigated its applications.
The coherence properties of a multimode laser diode as a broadband optical sources have been investigated using the scanning Michelson interferometer. In order to obtain broadband spectrum, a multimode laser diode was operated at the current level of 51.0mA below the threshold current of 51.4mA. In this case, the linewidth of the multimode laser diode was 7.65nm which was broader than the conventional laser light sources. In the output of the Michelson interferometer, the packets of interference fringes were formed because of the superposition of the longitudinal mode due to the residual Fabry-Perot cavity modulation of the spectrum. Separation between two adjacent longitudinal modes was 3.25Å and the coherence length was about 40 μm.
This scanning Michelon interferometer and the multimode laser diode as a broadband optical source was coupled to another unbalanced interferometer. And the optical path differences of the unbalanced interferometer was measured by path matching condition.
As an application of this scanning Michelson interferometer with multimode laser diode, a polarization maintaining fiber was used as an unbalanced interferometer and we have localized polarization coupling point in the polarization maintaining fiber. When one coupling point was located at 1.63m away from the fiber end, we could deduce the location of the coupling point from the optical path differences of scanning Michelson interferometer.
Also, as an another application of the interferometer, we have constructed a dual interferometer system with Fabry-Perot interferometer. A glass substrate was used as Fabry-Perot interferometer and the refractive index of the substrate was measured to be 1.46 at 830nm.
