When an almost flat surface under test is measured by an interferometer, the measurement result is largely influenced by systematic errors that include geometrical errors of a reference flat surface.
To determine the systematic errors of the interferometer by the conventional method that is called the three flat method, we must take the reference flat surface out from the interferometer and measure it. Because of difficulties to set the reference flat surface to the interferometer exactly and quickly, this method is not practical.
On the other hand, the method that measures a surface under test with some shifts in the direction being perpendicular to the optical axis of the interferometer is studied. However, the parasitic pitching, rolling and up-down movement caused by the above shifts brings serious error to the measurement result, and the algorithm by which the influences can be eliminated is not still established.
In this paper, we propose the self-calibration algorithm for determining the systematic errors that include geometrical errors of a reference flat surface by several rotation shifts and a linear shift of general surface under test, and verify by a numerical experiment that this algorithm is useful for determining the systematic errors.
