Wavefront sensing apparatus, method and applications

摘要

A wavefront sensing technique using Polarization Rotation INTerferometry (PRINT) provides a self-referencing, high-resolution, direct measurement of the spatially dependent phase profile of a given optical beam. A self-referencing technique is used to create a reference beam in the orthogonal polarization and a polarization measurement to measure the spatial-dependent polarization parameters to directly determine the absolute phase profile of the beam under test. A high-resolution direct measurement of the spatially-resolved phase profile of one or more optical beams is realized.

主权项

1. An optical wavefront sensing apparatus, comprising:
an imaging system; a polarization rotator disposed at a Fourier plane, or adjacent the Fourier plane at a known position, of an input field having a polarization state incident on the imaging system; a polarization analyzer disposed between the polarization rotator and an image plane of the system; and one or more spatially-resolving detectors disposed in the image plane of the input field having a constant zoom factor, wherein a polarized signal field and an orthogonally polarized reference field can be generated, further wherein one of the signal field and the reference field has a same polarization as the input field and one of the reference field and the signal field has an orthogonal polarization to that of the input field, and wherein the polarization analyzer comprises waveplates configured to interfere the signal field and reference field to create an interfered, transmitted field, and at least one polarizing beam splitter configured to separate the interfered, transmitted field into orthogonally polarized field components.