The lab simulation in a nutshell
First…
We investigated CGH as wavefront generators to demonstrate the feasibility of causing off-axis wavefront aberrations that correspond to Zernike modes, with and without rotational symmetry.
Then…
A CGH simulation system that reproduced the field optical performance of the CFH telescope was designed to test the WIRCAM camera. This simulator enabled INO to assess its performance in the laboratory, without requiring the actual telescope.
Lastly…
We created a CGH that mimics the features of the telescope wavefront on a F/3.5 prima focus with a field-of-view of 15 arc-minutes from the optical axis. The CGH simulator was modeled as a diffractive surface defined by a phase function based on an equation using Zernike polynomials. The CGH simulator had to operate in the first diffraction order. A carrier frequency was therefore added to the phase function to separate the diffraction orders and eliminate unwanted light during WIRCAM tests.