Non-Null Interferometer for Testing of Aspheric Surfaces

Abstract

The use of aspheric surfaces in optical designs can allow for improved performance with fewer optical elements. Their use has become common place due to advancements in optical manufacturing technologies. Standard interferometric testing of aspheric surfaces makes use of part specific null optics in order to match the test wavefront to the aspheric surface under test. Non-null interferometric testing offers the possibility to test a range of aspheric surfaces with a single interferometer design without the need for part specific null optics. However, non-null tests can generate interferograms with very high fringe frequencies that must be resolved and unwrapped, wavefronts with large slopes that must be imaged without vignetting, and induced aberrations which must be separated from the surface errors of the part. The main goal of this project was the construction of a non-null interferometer capable of testing the aspheric tooling used in the manufacturing of soft contact lenses. Sub-Nyquist interferometry was used to allow for large wavefront departures which generate high fringe frequency interferograms to be both captured and unwrapped. The sparse array sensor at the heart of the Sub-Nyquist technique sets limits on both the range of the parts to be tested and the design of the interferometer. Characterization of the interferometer was achieved through the reverse optimization and reverse ray tracing of a model of the interferometer and was aided by multiple measurements of the test part at shifted positions. The system was found to be capable of measuring parts with aspheric departure of over 60λ from the best fit sphere, which with introduced part shifts, generated over 300λ of OPD at the detector. The OPD introduced by the parts was measured to an accuracy of at least 0.76λ peak to valley and 0.12λ rms.