High-Resolution Correction of Arbitrary Wavefront Aberration Using Liquid Crystal Spatial Light Modulator

Abstract

Wavefront correction plays significant role in some fields like astronomical observation, laser processing and medical imaging, etc. Liquid crystal spatial light modulator ( LC SLM) is an ideal device for high-resolution wavefront correction because of its low cost, low consumption, large number of pixels and independent programming control of each unit. It is researched experimentally that LC SLM is used as a wavefront correction device and corrects arbitrary wavefront aberration. Wavefront correction is performed based on phase conjugation and periodic phase modulation with modulo-2π. The experimental results show that the PV value of the irregular wavefront aberration is 1.56λ, RMS value is 0.25 and Strehl ratio is 0.08 before correction, but the PV value of the residual aberration is reduced to 0.26λ, RMS value is 0.02 and Strehl ratio is increased to 0.97 which is approximated diffraction limit after correction. It is proved to be feasible and effective that LC SLM is used to the high-precision and high-resolution wavefront correction.