ANALYSIS OF CURVATURE SENSING FOR LARGE-APERTURE ADAPTIVE OPTICS SYSTEMS

We present an analysis of the curvature sensing method and the associa ted wave-front reconstruction problem for adaptive optics applications . The analysis includes characterizations of the nonlinear, diffractio n, and noise effects for curvature sensing. Reconstruction properties are shown to be characterized in terms of the eigenvalues of a discret ized Laplacian operator. A comparison of reconstruction performance fo r curvature and slope sensing is presented. Simulations based on the K eck telescope optical prescription are used to verify the analysis. (C ) 1996 Optical Society of America