Freeform optical surfaces are advantageous to optical designers, as they provide additional degrees of freedom for optimization. The loss of rotational symmetry, however, makes measurement of freeforms more challenging. Herein, advances in interferometric areal measurement of freeform optical surfaces, including null tests, non-null tests, near-null tests, and adaptive null tests, are reviewed. Some new developments, in the Hartmann test, deflectometry, and phase retrieval, as representatives of non-interferometric areal measurement, are then presented. Overall, the focus is on single-point-probe-based profilometry categorized into coordinate measurements and slope-or curvature-based measurements. Innovative measurement technology is trying to bridge the gap between high accuracy and high dynamic range as freeform optical surfaces are finding more applications in visible and shorter-wavelength optics.

The primary problem of conventional wavefront interferometers is limited dynamic range. Unknown free-form surface figure error with large amplitude or slope is not measurable for too dense or invisible fringes. To troubleshoot this problem, we propose adaptive wavefront interferometry (AWI). AWI utilizes a wavefront sensor-less adaptive optics (AO) subsystem to intelligently speculate and compensate the unknown free-form surface figure error. In this subsystem, adaptive null optics is utilized to iteratively generate adaptive wavefronts to compensate the unknown severe surface figure error. The adaptive null optics is close-loop controlled (i.e., wavefront sensor-less optimization algorithms are utilized to control it by real time monitoring the compensation effects to guarantee convergence of the iteration). Ultimately, invisible fringes turn into resolvable ones, and null test is further realized. To demonstrate the feasibility of AWI, we designed one spatial light modulator (SLM) based AWI modality as an example. The system is based on a commercial interferometer and is easy to establish. No other elements are required besides the SLM. Principle, simulation, and experiments for the SLM based AWI are demonstrated.

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