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We present an implementation of an absolute distance measurement system which uses frequency scanning interferometry (FSI). The technique, referred to as dynamic FSI, uses two frequency scanning lasers, a gas absorption cell and a reference interferometer to determine the unknown optical path length difference (OPD) of one or many measurement interferometers. The gas absorption cell is the length reference for the measurement system and is traceable to international standards through knowledge of the frequencies of its absorption features. The OPD of the measurement interferometers can vary during the measurement and the variation is measured at the sampling rate of the system (2.77 MHz in the system described here). The system is shown to measure distances from 0.2 m to 20 m with a combined relative uncertainty of 0.41 × 10⁻⁶ at the two sigma level (k = 2). It will be shown that within a scan the change in OPD of the measurement interferometer can be determined to a resolution of 40 nm.

The FLASHForward project at DESY is a pioneering plasma--wakefield acceleration experiment that aims to produce, in a few centimetres of ionised hydrogen, beams with energy of order GeV that are of quality sufficient to be used in a free--electron laser. The plasma wave will be driven by high-current density electron beams from the FLASH linear accelerator and will explore both external and internal witness--beam injection techniques. The plasma is created by ionising a gas in a gas cell with a multi--TW laser system, which can also be used to provide optical diagnostics of the plasma and electron beams due to the <30 fs synchronisation between the laser and the driving electron beam. The operation parameters of the experiment are discussed, as well as the scientific program.

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