Wavefront measurement by solving the irradiance transport equation for multifocal systems

Abstract

A method for sensing wavefronts is presented. The method is based on the resolution of the irradiance transport equation, which relates the irradiance distribution and the shape of the wavefront of a light beam propagating along a given direction. The method presents no restrictions in the locations of the measurement planes and incorporates an improved procedure to geometrically correct the acquired images to take into account the effect of ray deflection in the propagation of the irradiance distributions. With the proposed technique, we measure the wavefront at the exit pupil of a progressive addition lens and find good agreement with an alternative deflectometric method.