Non-overlap subaperture interferometric testing for large optics

It has been shown that the number of subapertures and the amount of overlap has a significant influence on the stitching accuracy. In this paper, a non-overlap subaperture interferometric testing method (NOSAI) is proposed to inspect large optical components. This method would greatly reduce the number of subapertures and the influence of environmental interference while maintaining the accuracy of reconstruction. A general subaperture distribution pattern of NOSAI is also proposed for the large rectangle surface. The square Zernike polynomial is employed to fit such wavefront. The effect of the minimum fitting terms on the accuracy of NOSAI and the sensitivities of NOSAI to subaperture’s alignment error, power systematic error, and random noise are discussed. Experimental results validate the feasibility and accuracy of the proposed NOSAI in comparison with wavefront obtained by a large aperture interferometer and stitching surface by multi-aperture overlap-scanning technique (MAOST).