The adaptive Shack-Hartmann sensor

Replacing the static microlens array in a Shack-Hartmann sensor by a liquid-crystal display offers a very flexible measurement approach. The liquid-crystal display is used for the generation of an array of Fresnel microlenses. The design parameters of the microlenses like focal length, number of lenses, position, and aperture size can be quickly adapted to solve difficult measurement tasks. This adaptive Shack-Hartmann sensor allows a pre-correction of the wavefront to take care of larger aberrations and to achieve a higher measurement accuracy. This makes new strategies possible to determine the wavefront. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.