Effective transmittance of Fabry–Perot cavity under non-parallel beam incidence

Abstract

The Fabry–Pérot (FP) resonant cavity is widely used in laser and spectroscopic measurements due to its unique interference transfer function (ITF). In the ideal case of parallel incident light, the ITF of the FP resonant cavity can be expressed by the Airy function. However, in reality, it is difficult to achieve perfect parallelism with collimated beams. In this article, a theoretical model is established for non-parallel light incidence, which assumes that the non-parallel incident light is a cone-shaped beam, and the cone angle is used to quantify the non-parallelism of the beam. The transmittance function of the FP resonant cavity under non-parallel light incidence is derived. The accuracy of the model is experimentally verified. Based on this model, the effects of divergence angle, tilt angle and FP cavity parameters (reflectivity, cavity length) on the ITF are studied. The reasons for the decrease in peak value, broadening and asymmetry of the interference peak under non-parallel light incidence are explained. It is suggested that a fine balance between the interference peak and the collimation effect of the incident light should be considered in the design and application of FP resonant cavities, especially for tilted applications such as angle-scanned spectroscopy. The research results of this article have certain significance for the design and application of FP resonant cavities.