Wavefront Sciences, Inc.

Justin D Mansell

Daniel Ralph Neal

Ron R Rammage

Darrell J Armstrong

William T Turner

An optical element which controls both the phase and irradiance distribution, thereby completely specifying the E-field, of light, allowing completely arbitrary control of the light at any plane. Such an optical element includes a portion that controls the phase and a portion that controls the irradiance. The portion that controls the irradiance is an apodized irradiance mask having its transmission varying with position in a controlled fashion. This apodized irradiance mask is preferably a pattern of metal. In order to insure a smoothly varying pattern of metal with minimized diffraction effects, a very thin mask spaced from a substrate is used to provide the metal on the substrate. The apodized irradiance mask may be placed directly on the phase control portion, or may be on an opposite side of a substrate of the phase controlled portion.

Apodized micro-lenses for Hartmann wavefront sensing and method for fabricating desired profiles

The spatial resolution of Hartmann-type sensors can be increased by moving a wavefront being sensed relative to the sensor by a non-integral number of apertures. The apertures may have a tilt on at least one side thereof. The lenslets themselves in a lenslet array may serve as the apertures or material may be provided on the lenslet array to create the apertures.

Sub-lens spatial resolution Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensing

A Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor having an aperture which is smaller than the size of an object being measured is used to measure the wavefront for the entire object. The wavefront sensor and the object are translated relative to one another to measure the wavefronts at a plurality of subregions of the object. The measured wavefronts are then stitched together to form a wavefront of the object. The subregions may overlap in at least one dimensions. A reference surface may be provided to calibrate the wavefront sensor.

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Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Justin D Mansell