Characterization of optical aberrations with scanning pentaprism for large collimators

TL;DR

This paper introduces a scanning pentaprism method for precise wavefront aberration measurement of large optical components, validated through experiments on a 20.3 cm lens with high accuracy.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel application of a scanning pentaprism technique combined with wavefront reconstruction for large collimator optics characterization.

Findings

Wavefront-detection precision better than 0.01λ

Divergence-angle resolution less than 20μrad

Good agreement between experimental results and raytracing models

Abstract

We present a practical apparatus for characterizing optical aberrations of large collimation mirrors and lenses, and give a detailed analysis of wavefront-detection errors. We utilize a scanning pentaprism technique for precise measurements of local wavefront slopes, and reconstruct transmitted wavefronts via a conventional least-squares method. Our proof-of-principle experiment demonstrates transverse linear measurements of transmitted wavefronts for a 20.3 cm lens developed for Canada's Quantum Encryption and Science Satellite (QEYSSat) mission. Our demonstration shows the wavefront-detection precision better than 0.01{\lambda} and the divergence-angle resolution less than 20{\mu}rad over the range of 40 cm. We model our optical setup using three-dimensional raytracing and find good quantitative agreement between experimental results and theoretical predictions which validates our methodology.