High performance adaptive optics with a reconstructed coherent wave front

Abstract

An adaptive optics system comprises a beamsplitter configured to divide an incoming beam with an aberrated wave front into a first input beam and a second input beam, a microelectromechanical system configured to reflect the first input beam onto an image plane, and a self-reference wave front generator configured to spatially filter the second input beam to form a reference beam, and to interfere the reference beam with the first input beam on the image plane to form a hologram. The system further comprises an imaging device configured to capture an image of the hologram on the image plane, and one or more processors. The one or more processors are configured to perform the steps of Fourier transforming the captured image to generate a transform including a first object image, a conjugate object image, and an auto-correlation image, truncating the transform to exclude the conjugate object image and the auto-correlation image, inverse Fourier transforming the truncated transform to generate amplitude and phase information about the aberrated wave front, generating control signals for mitigating aberrations in the aberrated wave front via phase conjugation based on the amplitude and phase information, and providing the control signals to the microelectromechanical system.