Testing the effect of computer-generated hologram fabrication error in a cylindrical interferometry system

This paper presents a method of testing the effect of computer-generated hologram (CGH) fabrication error in a cylindrical interferometry system. An experimental system is developed for calibrating the effect of this error. In the calibrating system, a mirror with high surface accuracy is placed at the focal axis of the cylindrical wave. After transmitting through the CGH, the reflected cylindrical wave can be transformed into a plane wave again, and then the plane wave interferes with the reference plane wave. Finally, the double-pass transmitted wavefront of the CGH, representing the effect of the CGH fabrication error in the experimental system, is obtained by analyzing the interferogram. The mathematical model of misalignment aberration removal in the calibration system is described, and the feasibility is demonstrated via the simulation system established in Zemax. With the mathematical polynomial, most of the possible misalignment errors can be estimated with the least-squares fitting algorithm, and then the double-pass transmitted wavefront of the CGH can be obtained by subtracting the misalignment errors from the result extracted from the real experimental system. Compared to the standard double-pass transmitted wavefront given by Diffraction International Ltd., which manufactured the CGH used in the experimental system, the result is desirable. We conclude that the proposed method is effective in calibrating the effect of the CGH error in the cylindrical interferometry system for the measurement of cylindricity error.