Comparison of the performance of the next generation of optical interferometers

Abstract

Six European National Measurement Institutes (NMIs) have joined forces within the European
\nMetrology Research Programme funded project NANOTRACE to develop the next generation
\nof optical interferometers having a target uncertainty of 10 pm. These are needed for NMIs to
\nprovide improved traceable dimensional metrology that can be disseminated to the wider
\nnanotechnology community, thereby supporting the growth in nanotechnology. Several
\napproaches were followed in order to develop the interferometers. This paper briefly describes
\nthe different interferometers developed by the various partners and presents the results of a
\ncomparison of performance of the optical interferometers using an x-ray interferometer to
\ngenerate traceable reference displacements.