Kavli Affiliate: Bruce Macintosh
| First 5 Authors: Vincent Chambouleyron, Mahawa Cissé, Maïssa Salama, Sebastiaan Haffert, Vincent Déo
| Summary:
The Zernike wavefront sensor (ZWFS) stands out as one of the most sensitive
optical systems for measuring the phase of an incoming wavefront, reaching
photon efficiencies close to the fundamental limit. This quality, combined with
the fact that it can easily measure phase discontinuities, has led to its
widespread adoption in various wavefront control applications, both on the
ground but also for future space-based instruments. Despite its advantages, the
ZWFS faces a significant challenge due to its extremely limited dynamic range,
making it particularly challenging for ground-based operations. To address this
limitation, one approach is to use the ZWFS after a general adaptive optics
(AO) system; however, even in this scenario, the dynamic range remains a
concern. This paper investigates two optical configurations of the ZWFS: the
conventional setup and its phase-shifted counterpart, which generates two
distinct images of the telescope pupil. We assess the performance of various
reconstruction techniques for both configurations, spanning from traditional
linear reconstructors to gradient-descent-based methods. The evaluation
encompasses simulations and experimental tests conducted on the Santa cruz
Extreme Adaptive optics Lab (SEAL) bench at UCSC. Our findings demonstrate that
certain innovative reconstruction techniques introduced in this study
significantly enhance the dynamic range of the ZWFS, particularly when
utilizing the phase-shifted version.
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