We present a wavefront reversal technique to produce a dual-field fringe pattern for self-referencing collimation testing in wedge-plate lateral-shear interferometry. The method requires only a suitably placed cubic beam splitter to produce two replicas of the fringe field formed by the wedge-plate lateral-shear interferometer. One of the replicas has a fringe pattern that is the reverse of the other. With these two fringe fields, the collimation testing has a built-in reference, and the detection sensitivity is twice that of a single-wedge-plate technique.
An air-wedge lateral-shear interferometer using two prisms is presented. With a variable shear, the interferometer is suitable for testing collimation of a wide range of beam sizes down to a few millimeters in diameter. No antireflection coatings are necessary. Collimation for a light source with short coherent length is also demonstrated.