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This image demonstrates a simple but typical Michelson interferometer. The bright yellow line indicates the path of light. The Michelson interferometer is a common configuration for optical interferometry and was invented by the 19/20th-century American physicist Albert Abraham Michelson. Using a beam splitter, a light source is split into two ...
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English: Formation of fringes in a Michelson interferometer. (a) If mirror M 1 and the reflected image M' 2 are parallel but separated by a finite distance, the two reflected sources S' 1 and S' 2 will be centered on the normal to the mirrors, and the interference fringes will be circles.
This diagram illustrates the folded light path used in the Michelson–Morley interferometer that enabled a path length of 11 m. a is the light source, an oil lamp . b is a beam splitter .
English: Michelson interferometer using white light. White light has only a very limited coherence length. White light has only a very limited coherence length. When using a white light source, the two optical paths must be equal for all wavelengths.
Schematic diagram of a Michelson interferometer, configured for FTIR. In a Michelson interferometer adapted for FTIR, light from the polychromatic infrared source, approximately a black-body radiator, is collimated and directed to a beam splitter. Ideally 50% of the light is refracted towards the fixed mirror and 50% is transmitted towards the ...
Figure 1. The light path through a Michelson interferometer.The two light rays with a common source combine at the half-silvered mirror to reach the detector. They may either interfere constructively (strengthening in intensity) if their light waves arrive in phase, or interfere destructively (weakening in intensity) if they arrive out of phase, depending on the exact distances between the ...
The first such interferometer built was at the Mount Wilson observatory, making use of its 100-inch (~250 centimeters) mirror. It was used to make the first-ever measurement of a stellar diameter, by Michelson and Francis G. Pease , when the diameter of Betelgeuse was measured in December 1920.