Method and apparatus for aligning an optical system

Abstract

A complex optical system may be aligned by means of a technique in which an analytical model of the system is utilized which is assumed to be capable of essentially optimal performance. A physical example of the same system design is then assembled and a plurality of performance characteristics measured. A plurality of specific adjustments are then calculated which would have the effect of degrading the performance of the analytical model to equal that measured for the physical example, whereupon compensating physical adjustments are made to the physical example. For many applications, the performance measurements may relate to aberrations to the wavefront of the point source image quantified by means of a Hartmann mask or the like. In that event, the estimation technique may be a straight-forward linear approximation technique including possible damping and/or weighting factors. The performance measurements may also be related to the intensity function associated with the image of a point source, in which case a second order estimation technique is required.