In broadband dielectric coatings, the wavefront of the reflected wave can change dramatically in a resonance-like manner as a function of wavelength. These wavefront errors can be a significant issue in high precision instruments. In the last years, effort has been undertaken to design and produce coatings to reduce these resonances. However, today there is still limited capability to characterize by measurement the spectral dependence of the wavefront error with high spectral resolution and accuracy. The goal of this paper is to present and analyze a design for a setup to measure the reflected wavefront from a coated flat component with high accuracy as a function of the wavelength. The proposed design is based on a passive system using high-precision off-axis parabolic mirrors. For sensing the wavefront error a Shack-Hartmann sensor is proposed, whose microlens array design is to be modified. According to error analysis and tolerance studies, the setup is capable of measuring wavefront distortion with sub-2 nm RMS accuracy within 510 nm to 950 nm. The angle of incidence and the polarization can also be varied without a loss of accuracy. In order to determine the point spread function (PSF) with high accuracy in addition to the wavefront measurement, the wavefront error of the setup itself needs to be below 50 nm RMS. The tolerancing performed in this study included the light source, shape errors of the mirrors, beam splitter, polarizers, and the sensors. Shape irregularities of the single elements were simulated by Zernike polynomials, and the residual wavefront error of the setup is estimated by Monte Carlo simulations, including uncertainties of the mechanical positioning. From these simulations, specifications for the mirrors have been worked out based on the goal of a system wavefront error lower than 50 nm RMS. The intended broad spectral range makes it challenging to identify a suitable Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor. Different sensor configurations are evaluated experimentally, and a reproducible wavefront measurement can be achieved by adjusting the focal length of the microlens array. Thereby, the repeatability in wavefront measurements could be reduced from 3 nm to less than 1 nm RMS by modifying the microlens array parameters. Tilting the polarizer and beam splitter by 2° prevents ghost images and multiple reflections in the setup. Finally, considerations about the realization of a suitable reference measurement with an optical flat of sufficient surface quality are presented.
In the present article, complex optical UV bandpass filters with tantalum pentoxide and zirconium dioxide as high refractive index materials, respectively, have been manufactured on the EOSS® sputtering system. Four different bandpass filters with central wavelengths between 316 nm and 399 nm and a blocking up to 1100 nm were realized. Transmittance of the filters was higher than 80% although the band pass was located close to the absorption edge of the high index material. For two of the filters, ZrO2 was used as the high index material. It is demonstrated that the ZrO2 containing filters have very good optical properties and ZrO2 is a good alternative to the use of the costly HfO2. The bandpass filters will be used as order-sorting filters for the grating spectrograph of the Sunrise UV Spectropolarimeter and Imager (SUSI) onboard the balloon-borne solar observatory Sunrise III. The filters are designed to filter out unwanted light that hits the detectors. The observatory will be launched in June 2022. Among other topics, the mission is dedicated to the investigation of magnetic fields and convective plasma flows in the lower solar atmosphere.
The present paper addresses uniformity effects in demanding dielectric optical coatings. The origins of spectral resonant wavefront errors (WFE) induced by non-uniformities in complex dielectric filters are investigated in detail. The coating is a broad-band beamsplitter with a high reflectance between 400 and 900 nm and a high transmittance between 920 and 2300nm. The WFE can significantly be reduced with an optimized design. A new setup based on Hartmann-Shack sensors measures the spectrally dependent WFE in the visual spectral range. The paper presents a method for referencing the measured data. The experimental WFE maps obtained by spectral Hartmann-Shack measurements agree well with the expected spectra taken from spectral photometric measurements and the coating design. The paper also addresses coatings on curved surfaces. A band pass filter centered at 670 nm on the convex side of a lens was developed. Using a combination of a sub-rotation and special uniformity masks, a very low spectral shift of the passband position overall the lens surface could be demonstrated. The deposition concept and mask design, respectively, are developed via simulation studies based on a simulation approach shown in [10]. Extension of the model framework by plasma simulation and a concept for computing deposition profiles on moving 3D substrates was required for solving the problem.
In this work the influence of non-uniformity effects on the spectral transmission properties of broad-band dielectric optical coatings was examined. Recently, it was observed that in modern complex dielectric coatings significant spectral, resonantlike errors of the reflected wavefront can occur at specific wavelengths, which are induced by lateral coating nonuniformities [1]. For a detailed investigation of this effect, a setup was developed for monitoring the spectrally dependent wavefront error, utilizing a broad-band monochromatized plasma lamp (spectral range from 400 – 900nm) as light source and a high sensitivity Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor for detection of reflected or transmitted wavefronts. In addition, a method for absolute and relative calibration of the measured wavefront error is presented. Two broadband dielectric beam splitters (#1 and #2) deposited by magnetron sputtering (high reflectance 400 – 900 nm, high transmittance 920 – 2300 nm) with different coating specifications were analyzed. It could be shown, that for an optimized design the spectral wavefront error can be significantly reduced compared to a standard beam splitter design [2].
A broadband beam splitter coating with the reflecting range from 400 to 900 nm and the transmitting range from 920 to 2300 nm was developed. To avoid absorptive losses at low wavelengths, Ta2O5 was chosen as the high index material. A new setup based on a Hartmann-Shack sensor was built to measure the wavefront error and its spectral dependence. An area of 120 mm diameter was measured. While in a standard coating, large resonant-like wavefront errors occur, an optimized coating with significantly reduced spectral wavefront error was designed and produced.
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