Spatiospectral transmission of a plane-mirror Fabry-Perot interferometer with nonuniform finite-size diffraction beam illuminations

Abstract

The transmission of a plane-mirror Fabry-Perot (PFP) interferometer is theoretically modeled and investigated by treating the spatial and spectral features in a unified manner. A spatiospectral transfer function is formulated and utilized to describe the beam propagation and the multiple-beam interference occurring in an ideal one-dimensional strip PFP interferometer with no diffraction loss. The spatial-frequency filtration of a finite-size beam input not only determines the transmitted spatial beam profile but also plays a crucial role in affecting the overall spectral transmittance. The inherent deviations of the spectral transmittance from what we know as the standard Airy's formula are revealed in diverse aspects, including the less-than-unity peak transmittance, the displacement of a resonance peak frequency, and the asymmetric detuning profile. Our theoretical analysis extends to the misaligned PFP interferometers, such as the cases in which non-normal-incidence beams or wedge-aligned mirrors are used that could severely degrade the effective interferometer finesse. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.