We present a modal phase-reconstruction method for analyzing wave front aberrations of rotationally symmetric optical components in two beam shearing interferometry. The optical configuration requires only two mutually coherent off-axis plane wave fronts transmitted through or reflected by the optical component under test. Finite moire beating between the interferograms and the CCD array is used to subtract the linear carrier introduced by defocus and the tilt making the presense of high order aberrations more evident. The difference wave front is described by elliptical Zernike polynomials as a function of the amount of lateral displacement between the two aberrated wave fronts. The method allows for accurate wave front reconstruction inside the quasi-elliptical overlap area between the laterally sheared interfering beams. Results of numerical experiments and applications of the technique for measuring aberrations of simple biconvex spherical lenses are presented.

Date Published: 15 March 2004
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 5481, Laser Optics 2003: Wavefront Transformation and Laser Beam Control, (15 March 2004); doi: 10.1117/12.558183

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5481:
Laser Optics 2003: Wavefront Transformation and Laser Beam Control
Vladimir E. Sherstobitov; Leonid N. Soms, Editor(s)