Direct wavefront phase measurement using point diffraction interferometer with application to large scale AO

Interferometric techniques are attractive in wavefront sensing because they give a direct measure of the phase, which means they are useful for use with a piston-only wavefront corrector (such as a liquid crystal spatial light modulator, or some MEMS mirrors). We describe a novel method of implementing a common-path phase-shifting point diffraction interferometric wavefront sensor. The sensor simultaneously gives two phase-shifted outputs which can be used to drive a phase-only wavefront corrector. The device can also give a null output which can be used to calibrate any scintillation.

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