Annular sub-aperture stitching interferometry testing for large-caliber aspheric

Abstract

An annular sub-aperture stitching interferometry testing is proposed for large-caliber aspheric lens testing, expanding the dynamic range of the interferometer, broadening the scope of the measurement, and reducing the cost of the measurement to a large extent without the use of compensating elements. The large-caliber aspheric is divided into several annular sub-apertures, and there are some overlapping areas between each two adjacent sub-apertures. When testing, the test aspheric is moved along the optical axis according to path planning so that the reference spherical shape and the test aspheric interest at points of common tangency to reduce the fringe density of the sub-aperture. However, in the process of moving the test optic, six DOF (degrees of freedom) misalignment errors will occur. According to the rigid body kinematics theory, the misalignment error separation model is established so that the misalignment factors can be calculated by the information of each overlapping regions. Then all sub-apertures are unified to the same reference with proper algorithm, and subsequently, misalignment error of the reference is removed by Zernike polynomial fitting, and the whole surface error is recovered. Simulation results are shown to demonstrate the feasibility of the method we developed. By analyzing the influence of the six DOF on the stitching result, the most important factor is obtained, and some measures are taken, that is, a measurement system combining two interferometers is designed, one of which is to measure the departures between the reference and the aspheric, and another to test the piston errors to be transmitted to the control system to improve the accuracy.