Determination of the refractive index profile and surface topography of optically smooth objects using interference of optical vortices

In this paper, we present the results of the propagational dynamics of vortex beams in the scope of their possible applications for interferometric non-contact robust and precision optical surface profilometry with nanoscale longitudinal resolution. The result of coaxial superposition of the reference plane wave with singly charged vortex beams represents a dynamically changing intensity distribution. The nature of this changes, namely, rotational effects of intensity zeros, allows to determine directly the optical path difference which is introduced by the surfaces and internal structure of test object. We have proposed the experimental setup for examination of reflecting and transmitting objects.