A Gas Lubricated Precision Platform for Interferometric Measurements,
Abstract
A gas lubricated slide was developed and used as the translating platform to constrain the motion of a movable wedge of a field-widened interferometer-spectrometer to within very precise limits. A unique mechanical configuration was required to facilitate the hand lapping operation required to obtain one wavelength flatness for all slide surfaces and parallelism within 25 micro inches. The low friction, absence of stick-slip friction and operation over temperature extremes of 70F to -320F were the primary reasons for selecting gas as the lubricant. A graphical technique was developed to solve the gas flow equation for this slide configuration to maximize the load carrying capacity and stiffness. The effect of different types of compensation were graphically analyzed and the orifice selected. Tests were conducted to verify the theoretical results with excellent agreement. The prototype interferometer-spectrometer reported herein was subsequently used to obtain the first temporally resolved spectrum of the OH delta v = 2 sequence from the ground.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1973
- Accession Number
- AD0766366
Entities
People
- Doran J. Baker
- Ralph H. Haycock
Organizations
- Utah State University