Extended Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor

A combination of a Hartmann-Shack sensor and a standard far-field measurement on one single detector is proposed. The technique is fast, manages without moveable parts, thus permitting a very compact design. It is not only suited for characterisation of the wavefront distribution, but may also be considered for determination of the important; parameters beam width, beam divergence and beam propagation ratio M-2 of partially coherent laser beams. First results indicate that a fairly thorough beam characterisation including spatial coherence, propagation characteristics and beam quality can be achieved with this method.