Shack-Hartmann vs reverse Hartmann wavefront sensors: first experimental results

With respect to the classical Shack–Hartmann (SH) wavefront sensor (WFS), the recently proposed reverse Hartmann (RH) sensor inverts the locations of the filtering and observation planes and forms a direct image of the pupil on a detector array. The slopes of the wavefront error (WFE) are then reconstructed by using a double Fourier transform algorithm. It turns out that the same algorithm can also be applied to the raw data acquired by SH sensors. This Letter presents the first, to the best of our knowledge, experimental results obtained with a simplified RH WFS and their comparison to those provided by a reference SH sensor, in both classical and double Fourier transform modes. They demonstrate that similar WFE measurement accuracy is achievable when using the three techniques, at least within the limit of our test bench that is estimated around $\lambda/10$λ/10 RMS.