Wavefront sensors and algorithms for adaptive optical systems

The results of recent works related to techniques and algorithms for wave-front (WF) measurement using Shack-Hartmann sensors show their high efficiency in solution of very different problems of applied optics. The goal of this paper was to develop a sensitive Shack-Hartmann sensor with high precision WF measurement capability on the base of modern technology of optical elements making and new efficient methods and computational algorithms of WF reconstruction. The Shack-Hartmann sensors sensitive to small WF aberrations are used for adaptive optical systems, compensating the wave distortions caused by atmospheric turbulence. A high precision Shack-Hartmann WF sensor has been developed on the basis of a low-aperture off-axis diffraction lens array. The device is capable of measuring WF slopes at array sub-apertures of size 640×640 μm with an error not exceeding 4.80 arcsec (0.15 pixel), which corresponds to the standard deviation equal to 0.017λ at the reconstructed WF with wavelength λ . Also the modification of this sensor for adaptive system of solar telescope using extended scenes as tracking objects, such as sunspot, pores, solar granulation and limb, is presented. The software package developed for the proposed WF sensors includes three algorithms of local WF slopes estimation (modified centroids, normalized cross-correlation and fast Fourierdemodulation), as well as three methods of WF reconstruction (modal Zernike polynomials expansion, deformable mirror response functions expansion and phase unwrapping), that can be selected during operation with accordance to the application.