A pyramid wavefront sensor (PWFS) bench has been setup at the National Research Council-Herzberg (Victoria, Canada) to investigate: the feasibility of a lenslet based PWFS and a double roof prism based PWFS as alternatives to a classical PWFS, as well as to test the proposed methodology for pyramid wavefront sensing to be used in NFIRAOS for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). Traditional PWFS require shallow angles and strict apex tolerances, making them difficult to manufacture. Lenslet arrays, on the other hand, are common optical components that can be made to the desired specifications, thus making them readily available. A double roof prism pyramid, also readily available, has been shown to optically equivalent by optical designers. Characterizing these alternative pyramids, and understanding how they differ from a traditional pyramid will allow for the PWFS to become more widely used, especially in the laboratory setting. In this work, the response of the SUSS microOptics 300-4.7 array and two ios Optics roof prisms are compared to a double PWFS as well as an idealized PWFS. The evolution of the modulation and dithering hardware, the system control configuration, and the relationship between this system and NFIRAOS are also explored. / Graduate

This thesis investigates a new approach for dealing with the adverse effects of large-scale deformations in the main reflector of large Cassegrain antennas. In this method, the incident aperture distribution is imaged onto a tertiary focal plane. This is accomplished by using an optical imaging system consisting of a lens mounted behind the Cassegrain focus of the antenna. The lens forms a real image of the product of the incident aperture distribution and the pupil function of the antenna. The pupil function describes the profile of the main reflector of the antenna. If the incident aperture distribution is a plane wave, a real image of the pupil function of the main reflector will be produced at the focal plane of the image lens. Any imperfections in the main reflector will be imaged onto the tertiary focal plane but over a smaller area as defined by the magnification of the system. In principle, an active correcting element placed into the tertiary focal plane could compensate for these errors, thus preserving the maximum efficiency of the antenna. Experimental verification of this principle was carried out in the lab using a dielectric lens 152.4mm in diameter. Phase perturbations were simulated by placing dielectric shims in the incident aperture plane. The phase of these shims in most cases was measured to within 10 degrees in the image plane. This degree of accuracy is found to be quite adequate for correcting large-scale errors in the main reflector of the antenna.