Wavefront error measurement technique using extended, incoherent light sources
Abstract
A technique for measuring wavefront errors in an optical system that receives light from a spatially extended, arbitrarily structured, incoherent source is described. If a suitable transparent mask is placed at an image plane of the system, the structure in the light source serves as a tracer for wavefront errors. The slope of the wavefront error can be detected in the form of intensity variations in a pupil image that follows the mask. One-dimensional numerical simulations of the method as well as the analytical treatment of the proposed principle are presented. The application of the technique as a wavefront sensor in an adaptive optical system for solar observations, in which aberrations are caused by atmospheric turbulence in the light path, is discussed as an example.
- Publication:
-
Optical Engineering
- Pub Date:
- December 1988
- DOI:
- 10.1117/12.7978681
- Bibcode:
- 1988OptEn..27.1078V
- Keywords:
-
- Adaptive Optics;
- Error Analysis;
- Incoherence;
- Light (Visible Radiation);
- Optical Equipment;
- Wave Fronts;
- Digital Simulation;
- Photosphere;
- Waveforms;
- Optics;
- SPECTROSCOPY