A METHOD FOR MEASURING THE SPHERICAL-ABERRATION OF A CYLINDRICAL OPTICAL-ELEMENT BY FOURIER-TRANSFORM TECHNIQUE

Abstract

A simple method of using Fourier transform technique for measuring the spherical aberration of a cylindrical optical element is presented. First, a collimated monochromatic light passes through a linear grating and a tested cylindrical optical element, then the deformed fringes are obtained in the observation plane. Next, the fringes are analyzed with the techniques of Fourier transform, bandpass filtering and inverse Fourier transform and finally the spherical aberration of the tested element is obtained.