Lateral Shearing Interferometry of a Pulsed Laser Wavefront

Abstract

Using an adjustable air gap between two glass discs as a shearing plate, we have measured the aberrations of a frequency-tripled Nd:glass laser to within approximately λ/2 over the central 70% of the beam diameter. To estimate accuracy, we compared our method of lateral shearing interferometry to Twyman-Green interferometry, using a well-collimated He-Ne laser as a light source.