Phase ambiguity solution with the Pyramid Phasing Sensor

In the technological development for the ELTs, one of the key activities is the phasing and alignment of the primary mirror segments. To achieve the phasing accuracy of a small fraction of the wavelength, an optical sensor is required. In 2005 has been demonstrated that the Pyramid Wavefront Sensor can be employed in closed loop to correct simultaneously piston, tip and tilt errors of segmented mirror. The Pyramid Phasing Sensor (PYPS) is based on the sensing of phase step on the segment edges; this kind of phasing sensors have the common limitation of the signal ambiguity induced by the phase periodicity of πδ/λ on the mirror surface step δ, when the wavelength λ is used for the sensing. In this paper we briefly describe three different techniques that allow to solve the phase ambiguity with PYPS. As first we present experimental results on the two wavelengths closed loop procedure proposed by Esposito in 2001; in the laboratory test the multi-wavelength procedure allowed to exceed the sensor capture range of ±λ/2 and simultaneously retrieve the differential piston of the 32 mirror segments starting from random positions in a 3.2 λ wavefront range, the maximum allowed by the mirror stroke. Then we propose two new techniques based respectively on the segment and wavelength sweep. The Segment Sweep Technique (SST) has been successfully applied during the experimental tests of PYPS at the William Herschel Telescope, when 13 segments of the NAOMI DM has been phased starting from a random position in a 15λ range. The Wavelength Sweep Technique (WST) has been subject of preliminary tests in the Arcetri laboratories in order to prove the concept. Each technique has different capture range, accuracy and operation time, so that each can solve different tasks required to an optical phasing sensor in the ELT application. More in detail the WST and SST could be used combined for the first mirror phasing when the calibration required for the closed loop operations are not yet available. Then the closed loop capture range can be extended from ±λ/2 to ±10λ with the multi-wavelength closed loop technique.