Abstract
We propose a new type of a wavefront aberration sensor, that is, a Zernike matched multichannel diffractive optical filter, which performs consistent filtering of phase distributions corresponding to Zernike polynomials. The sensitivity of the new sensor is theoretically estimated. Based on the theory, we develop recommendations for its application. Test wavefronts formed using a spatial light modulator are experimentally investigated. The applicability of the new sensor for the fine-tuning of a laser collimator is assessed.
Highlights
The problem of studying the deviation of a wavefront from the desired shape is one of the most significant in optics
The Hartmann method [4], which appeared later, differs from the previous techniques by the fact that the wavefront deviations are calculated from a set of subapertures, with some steps covering the full size of the region to be studied
We propose a new sensor for measuring aberration coefficients based on a special multichannel diffractive optical element [22,23,24]
Summary
The problem of studying the deviation of a wavefront from the desired shape is one of the most significant in optics. Diffractive optical elements for the integral calculation of the expansion coefficients of the amplitude–phase distributions of light fields over various bases [25,26,27,28], including the basis of Zernike functions [29,30,31], have been developed and used in fiber-optic sensors [32,33,34], for measuring the angular momentum of laser beams [35,36,37], for optical communication using mode and polarization (de)multiplexing [38,39,40,41,42,43,44], and in testing problems [45,46] These elements make it possible to simultaneously obtain the values of the decomposition coefficients in the given elements of the photodetector matrix. This is quite enough for most practically significant cases of certification of optical systems; for example, it is believed that the average aberration should not exceed λ/10 for budget imaging systems and λ/100 for high-end systems
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