SPATIAL WAVEFRONT EVALUATION BY INTENSITY RELATIONSHIP

Abstract

A method, and apparatus for accomplishing the method, for determining a phase difference of a wavefront at a first (pupil) plane (P1), the wavefront propagating from the first plane to a second (image) plane (P2). The method includes the steps of providing an intensity of the wavefront at the first plane; measuring an intensity of the wavefront at the second plane; and determining the phase difference of the wavefront at the first plane in accordance with a transfer function that employs the provided intensity of the wavefront at the first plane and the measured intensity of the wavefront at the second plane. A single expression describing an Optical Transfer Function is developed and is shown to involve only the unknown aperture phase and known quantities. A solution to this expression, achieved by a polynomial expansion technique or by a sampling technique, is shown to yield the phase at the aperture and, together with the intensity at the aperture, to define the aperture wavefront.

Source: Google Patents

35 USC §181 Secrecy Order

Inventor

• 1EDWARD T. SIEBERT

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