Near-focus high-sensitivity wavefront sensing

A new method of wavefront sensing that uses a pair of equally defocused images to derive the wavefront aberrations is presented. Unlike in conventional curvature-sensing systems, the sensor works in a near-focus regime where the transport of intensity equation is not valid, and, unlike in phase-dive...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 2005-07, Vol.360 (4), p.1325-1332
Main Authors: Bharmal, N. A., Buscher, D. F., Haniff, C. A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astronomy
Fiber optic interferometers
instrumentation: adaptive optics
Sensors
techniques: high angular resolution
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Summary:A new method of wavefront sensing that uses a pair of equally defocused images to derive the wavefront aberrations is presented. Unlike in conventional curvature-sensing systems, the sensor works in a near-focus regime where the transport of intensity equation is not valid, and, unlike in phase-diversity methods, a non-iterative algorithm is used to infer the wavefront aberrations. The sensor designs outlined only require a small number of detector pixels: two designs with five and nine pixels per plane are analysed, and the nine-element sensor (NES) is shown to have a competitive measurement sensitivity compared with existing low-order astronomical wavefront sensors. The NES is thus well suited to applications such as adaptive optics for the individual telescopes in an optical interferometer array.
ISSN:0035-8711
1365-2966
DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09117.x