Interferometer with Deformable Mirror for Adaptive Testing of Flat, Spherical and Aspheric Optical Surfaces

The aim of this work is to propose, analyze and design an interferometer with an adaptive optics system, which will be able to generate the tailored reference wavefront corresponding to the test optical surface. When measuring flat or spherical optical surfaces one may replace expensive precise transmission flats and spheres by a transmission flat or sphere, which can be designed by one or more lower precision lenses. In principle, residual aberrations of such null optics can be then compensated using a deformable mirror of an adaptive shape. Thus, special transmission spheres and tailored diffractive optical elements for the interferometer are no more needed. The principle of the measurement is presented and possibilities of optical testing are investigated on an example of the experimental laboratory set-up of the interferometer. The designed adaptive interferometer uses the deformable mirror Mirao (TM) 52-e from Imagine Eyes as an adaptive optical element for generation of the reference wavefront in the interferometer. Such interferometers could be applied for measurements of flat, spherical and mild aspheric optical surfaces in principle.