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Wavefront reconstruction for the Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor

Daniel M. Topaa WaveFront Sciences, Inc.


ABSTRACT
The Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor is powerful tool for optical analysis. A vital step in the data analysis chain involves reconstructing the wavefront incident upon the lenslet array from hundreds or thousands of slope measurements. We discuss here the basics of reconstruction and the differences in reconstruction for the case of Hartmann and Shack-Hartmann sensors. Hartmann sensors take point samples of the wavefront but Shack-Hartmann sensors measure the average slope over small regions. This results in subtle differences in the reconstruction. Keywords: wavefront reconstruction, direct reconstruction, modal reconstruction, zonal reconstruction, Shack-Hartmann

1. INTRODUCTION
A Shack-Hartmann sensor is a simple device. A micro optic array of lenslets dissects an incoming wavefront and creates a pattern of focal spots on a CCD array. The lenslet array typically contains hundreds or thousands of lenslets, each on the size scale of a hundred microns. In typical operation, a reference beam is first imaged and the location of the focal spots is recorded. Then the wavefront of interest is imaged and a second set of focal spot locations is recorded. Figure 1 shows this process graphically. The software then computes the shift in each focal spot. As shown in another paper in this volume [1], the shift in the focal spot is proportional to the average of the slopes of the wavefront over the region sampled by the lenslet. To better understand the main points of this paper, it is worthwhile to discuss the operation in more detail. Usually, some optical system delivers a wavefront onto the lenslet array which samples the wavefront over the tiny regions of each lenslet. As pointed out in [1], the lenslets should be much smaller than the wavefront variation, that is, the wavefront should be isoplanatic b over the sampled region. When the CCD array is in the focal plane of the lenslet array, each lenslet will create a focal spot on the CCD array. The location of these focal spots is the critical measurement for it reveals the average of the wavefront slopes across each region. If the wavefront is not isoplanatic, the quality of the focal spot erodes rapidly and it becomes more difficult to determine the peak location. This paper will consider the case where the isoplanatic condition is satisfied and where the focal spot shift is consistent with the small angle approximation of Fresnel [2]. In these limits, the focal spot shift is exactly proportional to the average of the wavefront slope over the lenslet. Now the issue becomes how does one take a series of hundreds or thousands of measurements of the average of the slopes and reconstitute the incident wavefront? This process of taking the measurements and reconstituting the wavefront incident upon the lenslet array is called reconstruction and is the subject of this paper.

2. WAVEFRONT RECONSTRUCTION
One uses the results of myriad averaged slope measurements to reconstruct the wavefront incident upon the lenslet array. It is common to hear people describe reconstruction as an integration process. This is malapropos and ironic. The irony is that Nature has already done the integration for us; as shown below the measured quantity is already an integrated form of the incident wavefront. Given a wavefront ( x 1, x2 ) incident upon a lenslet, what exactly does the sensor measure in the isoplanatic and small angle limits? It measures the average of the wavefront slopes over each lenslet. So for an integration domain of x1 [ a , b ] , x 2 [ c, d] the average of the derivative of ( x 1, x2 ) is given by
a. Phone 505.275.4747; http:/www.wavefrontsciences.com; WaveFront Sciences, Inc., 14810 Central Ave SE, Albuquerque, NM, 87123-3905. E-mail address: dtopa@wavefrontsciences.com. b. Here isoplanatic has the geometric context of being flat like a plane. This is different from the context articulated by Goodman in [2].

SPIE 2002 4769-13

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14:42:18, 7/28/04

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