title: Wavefront reconstruction by modal decomposition.
abstract: We propose a new method to determine the wavefront of a laser beam based on modal decomposition by computer-generated holograms. The hologram is encoded with a transmission function suitable for measuring the amplitudes and phases of the modes in real-time. This yields the complete information about the optical field, from which the Poynting vector and the wavefront are deduced. Two different wavefront reconstruction options are outlined: reconstruction from the phase for scalar beams, and reconstruction from the Poynting vector for inhomogeneously polarized beams. Results are compared to Shack-Hartmann measurements that serve as a reference and are shown to reproduce the wavefront and phase with very high fidelity.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Optics, Fröbelstieg 1, 07743 Jena, Germany. christian.schulze@uni-jena.de
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schulze
authors.forename: Darryl
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Naidoo
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Flamm
authors.forename: Oliver A
authors.initials: OA
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Forbes
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Duparré
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D006696:Holography / Q000379:methods*; D007834:Lasers; D008027:Light; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012542:Scattering, Radiation