Algorithm and experiment of whole-aperture wavefront reconstruction from annular subaperture Hartmann–Shack gradient data

Abstract

A new method is proposed for testing a rotationally symmetric aspheric surface with several annular subapertures based on a Hartmann-Shack sensor. In consideration of the limited sampling of Hartmann-Shack subapertures in the matching annular subaperture, a new algorithm for whole-aperture wavefront reconstruction from annular subaperture Hartmann-Shack gradient data is established. The algorithm separates the tip, tilt, and defocus misalignments for each annular subaperture by introducing annular Zernike polynomials. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated for different annular subaperture configurations, and the sensitivity of the algorithm to the detector error of the wavefront gradient is analyzed. The algorithm is verified by the experimental results.