Radial shear interferometer with twin non-confocal photon sieves

Abstract

Interference wavefront detection technology has been widely used due to its non-contact, high sensitivity and high precision. Among many wavefront detection techniques, radial shearing interferometry is one of the most effective techniques because it does not need a standard reference beam, and it is easy to be designed as a common optical path without information loss and little affected by system error. However, the current radial shear interference technology still has the disadvantages that the optical path structure is not simple enough and cannot be applied to large-aperture optical systems. Focusing on the main problems of shear interference technology, we propose a radial shear interference technology based on a pair of photon sieves. A system consisting of two photon sieves can achieve radial shear interference, which greatly simplifies the optical setup and improves the stability of the optical system. In addition, the photon sieve has low manufacturing difficulty, flexible design, low cost and can meet the detection requirements of different optical systems. Therefore, the application of photon sieve in radial shear interference technology has great research significance.