Paper
20 November 2003 Acoustic method for the determination of the effective temperature and refractive index of air
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Abstract
An acoustic method for measurement of the effective temperature and refractive index of air along a laser beam path is described. The method can be used to improve the accuracy of interferometric length measurements outside the best laboratories, and even in severe environmental conditions. The method is based on the measurement of the speed of ultrasound over the same distance measured with a laser interferometer. The effectiveness of the method derives from the fact that the relative effect of a change in air temperature is about two thousand times greater on the speed of sound than on the refractive index of air. Experimental equations for the effective temperature or refractive index of air as a function of the speed of sound, pressure, humidity and CO2 concentration are fitted using the measured speed of sound, the Cramer equation, the dispersion correction and Edlén equations. The standard uncertainties of the effective temperature and the refractive index of air equations are estimated to be 15 mK and 1.7×10-8, respectively. The uncertainties of the effective temperature and refractive index of air measured with the test setup were 25 mK and 2.6×10-8 (for L = ~5 m), respectively.
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Antti Lassila and Virpi Korpelainen "Acoustic method for the determination of the effective temperature and refractive index of air", Proc. SPIE 5190, Recent Developments in Traceable Dimensional Measurements II, (20 November 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.504468
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Cited by 10 scholarly publications.
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KEYWORDS
Refractive index

Temperature metrology

Acoustics

Humidity

Ultrasonography

Transducers

Distance measurement

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