Radial shearing dynamic wavefront sensor based on geometric phase lens pair

A radial shearing dynamic wavefront sensor is theorized and experimentally verified. The proposed sensor is based off of a geometric phase lens pair that generates two radially sheared wavefronts. A polarization pixelated camera instantaneously obtains polarization-multiplexed phase maps from a single image acquisition by using a spatial phase shifting technique. Experimental tests applied several wavefront shapes with a deformable mirror for measurements. The results were compared with a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor to evaluate the performances.