Wave-front sensing with a sampling field sensor

We present a new type of optical wave-front sensor: the sampling field sens or(SFS). The SFS attempts to solve the problem of real-time optical phase d etection. It has a high space-bandwidth product and can be made compact and vibration insensitive. We describe a particular implementation of this sen sor and compare it, through numerical simulations, with a more mature techn ique based on the Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensor. We also present experim ental results for SFS phase estimation. Finally, we discuss the advantages and drawbacks of this SFS implementation and suggest alternative implementa tions. (C) 2000 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 120.3180, 120.3930, 120.4640, 120.5050, 350.4600, 350.5030.