Automatic Characterization of the Refractive Index Profile of Fibers by Interferometry

Interferometry provides a non-destructive method for examining the refractive index profile or the radial birefringence distribution within fibers. The key step in the interference data reduction involves the extraction of the refractive index profile along the axial direction of the fiber. The profile is due to the path difference between the fiber and the immersion liquid when a fiber is oriented perpendicular to the fringe field in an interference microscope. The refractive index provides a measure of the degree of optical anisotropy and is indicative of the degree of orientation of the structure. This is of particular interest to nonwovens because in thermally bonded nonwovens, the orientation plays a major role in how well the fibers are bonded and the ultimate properties of the fabric. Despite its long history, however, the interpretation of the interference fringe shift is not precisely defined. Consequently, the data are not reproducible from one laboratory to the next. We outline below an objective and quantitative method for precisely measuring a fiber's refractive index profile from a digitized image of the interference fringe. This new algorithm uses the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to remove the inherent noise present in the fiber interferogram and to aid in extracting the profile.