The SWAT wavefront sensor
Abstract
A team of researchers at Lincoln Laboratory built an advanced 241-channel Hartmann wavefront sensor for the adaptive optics system that was used in the Short-Wavelength Adaptive Techniques (SWAT) experiments. This sensor measures the phase of either pulsed or continuous sources of visible light. The instrument uses binary optics lens arrays made at Lincoln Laboratory to generate 16 x 16 subaperture focal spots whose centroids are measured with custom-built 64 x 64-pixel charge-coupled-device (CCD) cameras. The back-illuminated CCD detectors have quantum efficiencies of 85 percent at 500 nm; the camera has a readout noise of 25 electrons rms at 7000 frames/sec. A special pipeline processor converts the CCD camera data to wavefront gradients in 1.4 microsec. The sensor has an accuracy of lambda/15 at an input light level of 2000 photons per subaperture.
- Publication:
-
Lincoln Laboratory Journal
- Pub Date:
- 1992
- Bibcode:
- 1992LLabJ...5..115B
- Keywords:
-
- Adaptive Optics;
- Optical Measuring Instruments;
- Photonics;
- Wave Front Reconstruction;
- Charge Coupled Devices;
- Focal Plane Devices;
- Lenses;
- Light Sources;
- Telescopes;
- Instrumentation and Photography