Position detection of multiple light beams using phase detection

Earlier work on lateral-effect position-sensitive detectors (PSD) has used an amplitude detection signal-processing scheme to determine the position of the centroid of the incident light beam on the PSD surface. In this work we introduce a phase detection method of position measurement which is based on detecting the phase difference between the sinusoidal currents flowing through the metal electrodes. A distributed transmission line model for the PSD and a one-pole model for the transimpedance preamplifier are used in the analysis of the sensor. Experimental results are presented and are found to be in close agreement with simulation results. It is seen that the spatial resolution is proportional to the modulation frequency. With a light modulation frequency of 50 kHz and the introduction of frequency multiplication (×8) after the transimpedance preamplifier, a spatial resolution of 2 μm is demonstrated. For application in multi-degree-of-freedom position sensors, we demonstrate the simultaneous detection of centroids of multiple light beams using frequency division multiplexing. Application of the phase method of position detection to a two dimensional PSD shows a maximum deviation from linearity of 1% over the working range of the PSD