Construction of a Michelson Interferometer for Fourier Spectroscopy

Michelson [1,2]1 showed the usefulness of the interJerometer that bears his name. He showed that the intensity of the light measured at the output of his \ device is the FOUl'ier transform of the incident optic· cal spectra. Lord Rayleigh [3] showed how the obc servation of the visibility of the fring es could give the spectral profile of a symmetrical line. With the development of infrared detectors, Rubens and Wood [4] measured an "interferogram" and calculated a spectrum from this. The interrerogram is the output measUl'ed from a :Y£i chelson interferometer. Because of t he availability of modem computers, this method has recently been revived [5 ,6, and 7]. Connes [8] has presen ted a detailed theory of the complete method. The following presents a brief outlin e of the properties of the method , and a description of an instrument with design criteria.