Review of the paper titled: “Piston error calibration of zonal

reconstruction for a segmented wavefront in lateral shearing

interferometry, Li Jie et. al.”
Arnab Barman Ray

OPT 442

Summary
I have read the paper titled above. The paper aims to introduce numerical methods to correct
piston errors between different areas in a segmented wavefront profile. Piston errors between
different segments can pose significant difficulties in the accurate zonal reconstruction of the original
wavefront. Such problems can arise in high energy laser systems where segmented beam profiles
present themselves.
The paper uses a zonal reconstruction method (titled as “method 1”) to reconstruct an initial
wavefront from a segmented wavefront profile using padded data and optimization algorithms out-
lined in [1], using lateral shearing interferometry(LSI). A shear amount of Sx = Sy = 1 is used
in method 1. The two subsequent methods used in the paper, “method 2” and “method 3” differ
only in their initial starting points, method 2 starts with a grid of zeros as input to method 1 in
which GZR(generalized zonal wavefront reconstruction [1]) is then used to make the reconstructed
wavefront. Method 3 uses a DZF(difference Zernike fitting) fit using 16 fringe Zernike annular
polynomials as an input to method 1, which carries out GZR to give a reconstructed wavefront.
A fit of the reconstructed wavefront is then made in both the methods(2 and 3) using 25 Zernike
terms. The two thus generated wavefronts(from method 1 and method 2/3) are then weighted in
each segment and corresponding piston terms are then used to find piston differences, ∆Pk of each
segment k. Pseudo piston errors are then computed by taking one segment as a reference, 1, and
finding the difference in the piston errors calculated earlier for each segment with the reference,
∆pk = ∆Pk − ∆P1 . In each of the segments, the reconstructed wavefront is modified by adding a
constant term, Wr,k = Wr,k + Hk ∆pk , where Hk is an adjustment factor set to log2 (| ∆p ∆Pt |), ∆Pt be-
k

ing a threshold value. This modified wavefront is then again fed into method 2 or 3 thus completing
an iteration. Throughout the whole paper, piston, tilt and defocus aberrations are not considered
due to the insensitivity of LSI towards these aberrations.
The paper presents an analysis of the performance of these two methods using a numerically
generated original wavefront using 25 fringe Zernike annular polynomials. The reconstructed wave-
front for method 3 is found to be more accurate as is expected. However, within 8 iterations, both
the methods produce similar and tolerable values for both the RMS(∼ 10−5 ) and the pseudo piston
errors(∼ ∆Pt ).
The impact of the adjustment factor, Hk , is assessed. Constant values of this parameter is
found to lead to divergent increase in RMS error as the number of iterations is increased. The
original expression used is shown to achieve a faster convergence than any of the other alternatives
considered.

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 The effect of including more terms in the initial fit in method 3 is analyzed. While higher
number of terms(> 16) used in the fit of the original wavefront leads to smaller initial RMS
and pseudo-piston errors, the end results after the iterations are not affected. Using more fitting
parameters(> 25) in the second fit of method 3 and also in method 2 produce no significant changes
in the fitting errors.
All the calculations above were carried out using shear amounts of Sx = Sy = 1. It is found
that using Sx = Sy = 13 produces higher RMS errors(∼ 10−3 ) but most of it is traceable to method
1.
In order to demonstrate the robustness of method 3, 36 Taylor monomials are used to generate
a test wavefront, instead of the Zernikes used earlier. To reduce fitting error, 36 terms are used in
the initial fit of method 3. The RMS error was ∼ 10−4 . Shear amounts of Sx = Sy = 1 were used.
An experiment using a visible laser(532 nm) was used in a grating setup. Shear amounts of
Sx = Sy = 13 were used. 36 terms was used for the initial fit in method 3. Method 3 was found to
require a substantially less number of iterations than method 2 in order to reach tolerable pseudo
piston errors. However, both methods produced similar results with negligible piston differences
between them. A second measurement is also carried out to demonstrate the robustness of the two
methods.

Assessment and Suggestions

The work presents a computational approach to correcting piston errors in segmented wavefronts
using LSI. While other experimental approaches have been used before to determine and correct
such errors in specific cases, the methods presented here appear to be new and versatile. I would
recommend this article for publication while drawing the attention of the authors to the following
issues and suggestions which should be addressed before publication:

• Relevant prior work considering piston error quantification and correction in segmented pro-
files using adaptive optics should be cited: [2], [3] and [4]. Necessary modifications to the
introduction must be made specifically in regard to the claim that no methods have been
used previously to address such problems.

• The fact that method 2 and 3 differ only in their initial inputs to method 1 should be made
clearer in the introduction. The fact that the methods 2 and 3 contain method 1 should also
be emphasized.

• In the first paragraph of Page 2, while discussing method 1, a reference should be made
to [1], which is cited before but in a different context, as this is the reference that details the
techniques used in method 1.

• None of the sub-figures of Fig. 4 have their axes labeled. This can be amended for it to be
in keeping with the rest of the figures in the paper.

• In Section 3D of the paper, the study is carried out with respect to change in the number of
fitting terms used in the initial fit of method 3(in the input to method 1) and also in the fit
used in both method 2 and 3. This is not immediately discernible from the text in the first
paragraph of Section D, where a singular reference to Fig. 8 is made before illustrating that
a study with respect to the first fit in method 3 is also carried out. The distinction must be
made clearer in this section with adequate references to the relevant sub-figures in Fig. 8.

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 • The x-axis label of Fig. 15 needs to be corrected, as the number of iterations seems to have
been presented as an amount of pixels.

• In section 4, an unsegmented profile of the aberrations of the test optic may be made. This
is essential in order to determine the RMS errors of the wavefronts reconstructed by the
two methods. In fact, such a measurement is crucial in determining the accuracy of these
methods.

Summary of Review
The present work is a novel computational approach to identify and correct piston errors in the
reconstruction of segmented wavefront profiles using LSI. If the suggestions listed above are taken
into account, I would recommend the article for publication.

References
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