Authors
François Hénault, Yan Feng
Published in
Applied optics. Volume 65. Issue 32. Pages 11332-11344. Nov 10, 2026. Epub Oct 12, 2026.
Abstract
Wavefront sensing techniques are now recognized as a core technology allowing accurate characterization of the image quality of optical systems. It allows precise measurement of the wavefront errors generated by various types of optical systems and is very popular in the fields of optical metrology, biological imaging, free-space optical communications, and adaptive optics for astronomy. This paper presents the conceptual design of a new wavefront sensor (WFS), to our knowledge, to be added to the vast family of already existing ones. Its design is inspired from a radiometric interpretation of the optical differentiation sensor (ODS), considered as being a pure photometric filter of the geometrical aberrations of the system. It is then inferred that other types of filters may be used, such as those encoding the aberrations of the tested optics in polar coordinates. The present paper gives the complete theory of this newpolar-coordinate wavefront sensor (PC-WFS), to the best of our knowledge. Extensive numerical simulations are carried out, and their results are compared with those obtained with the ODS. It is found that, although the ODS looks slightly superior in terms of wavefront error measurement accuracy, the PC-WFS offers its own advantages, such as minimizing the diffraction effects located near the pupil rim of the optics and improving the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the sensor. Finally, the PC-WFS looks well suited to future developments and improvements.
PMID:
43008160
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 11 Nov 2026.
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