Multiple spatial frequencies wavefront sensing

TL;DR

This paper explores a novel wavefront sensing approach that splits and mixes spatial frequency perturbations, aiming to improve performance over traditional sensors by leveraging frequency domain manipulation.

Contribution

It introduces a new class of wavefront sensors based on spatial frequency splitting and mixing, extending beyond existing spatial filtered Shack-Hartmann methods.

Findings

Derived relationships for sensor performance evaluation

Identified potential advantages over conventional sensors

Proposed a framework for practical implementation

Abstract

We describe the concept of splitting spatial frequency perturbations into some kind of pupil planes wavefront sensors. Further to the existing approach of dropping higher spatial frequency to suppress aliasing effects (the so-called spatial filtered Shack-Hartmann), we point out that spatial frequencies splitting and mixing of these in a proper manner, could be handled in order to exhibit some practical or fundamental advantages. In this framework we describe the idea behind such class of concepts and we derive the relationship useful to determine if, by which extent, and under what kind of merit function, these devices can overperform existing conventional sensors.