USE OF RANDOM AMPLITUDE TRANSPARENCIES IN SENSORS OF THE AVERAGE TILTOF THE OPTICAL RADIATION WAVE-FRONT

To enhance the reproducibility and reliability of measurements of the average tilt of a laser radiation wavefront, a random amplitude transp arency is brought into the optical system of a sensor based on a four- element matrix photodetector. The transparency is a ''black-and-white' ' screen with a set of cells with randomly selected transmission coeff icient values. It is shown that the presence of such a transparency ma kes it possible (at the cost of a decrease in sensor sensitivity) to s harply extend the measurement range and to considerably lower the requ irements for spatial and energy radiation characteristics. An experime ntal sensor has a measurement range of +/-1.5 mrad and a linearity ran ge of +/-0.6 mrad.