Error analysis of homodyne multi-pass interferometer with Jones matrix

Interferometer is widely used in precise displacement measurement. Nonlinearity of interferometer is one of the major limits when using interferometers in nanometer displacement measurement. Nonlinearity is caused by phase mixing in homodyne interferometers due to the imperfect of polarization optical components. Both the detection part and interferometer part cause nonlinearity. In this study, the polarization mixing effect of multi-pass interferometer caused by the interferometer part is analyzed by Jones matrix. The effects of polarization beam splitter and wave plate on the nonlinearity are studied. The results show that the polarization mixing effect in multi-pass interferometers cause different orders of frequency components. The nonlinearity error is asymmetry with different harmonic components compared to that caused by the detection part.