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Phase Contrast Wavefront Sensing for Adaptive OpticsMost ground-based adaptive optics systems use one of a small number of wavefront sensor technologies, notably (for relatively high-order systems) the Shack-Hartmann sensor, which provides local measurements of the phase slope (first-derivative) at a number of regularly-spaced points across the telescope pupil. The curvature sensor, with response proportional to the second derivative of the phase, is also sometimes used, but has undesirable noise propagation properties during wavefront reconstruction as the number of actuators becomes large. It is interesting to consider the use for astronomical adaptive optics of the "phase contrast" technique, originally developed for microscopy by Zemike to allow convenient viewing of phase objects. In this technique, the wavefront sensor provides a direct measurement of the local value of phase in each sub-aperture of the pupil. This approach has some obvious disadvantages compared to Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensing, but has some less obvious but substantial advantages as well. Here we evaluate the relative merits in a practical ground-based adaptive optics system.
Document ID
20110013165
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Conference Paper
External Source(s)
Authors
Bloemhof, E. E.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Wallace, J. K.
Bloemhof, E. E.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 25, 2013
Publication Date
August 2, 2004
Subject Category
Optics
Meeting Information
Meeting: SPIE Optical Society and Technology
Location: Denver, CO
Country: United States
Start Date: August 2, 2004
Sponsors: International Society for Optical Engineering
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
adaptive optics
wavefront sensing
phase contrast

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