Daniel AGUIRRE-AGUIRRE, Rafael IZAZAGA-PÉREZ, María Elizabeth PERCINO-ZACARÍAS, Fermín GRANADOS-AGUSTÍN, and Alejandro CORNEJO-RODRÍGUEZ

Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica, INAOE, Optics department, Apdo. Postal 51 and 216, C.P. 72000, Puebla, Pue., México

(Received November 30, 2012; Revised February 13, 2013; Accepted February 18, 2013)

With the Ronchi test a technician controls the manufacturing process using the following procedure: first, a Ronchigram is simulated which is scale-printed and placed on the surface as a mask and is usually printed with a low spatial resolution. This simulated Ronchigram is compared visually with the experimental pattern observed. This way of comparison leads to systematic errors in the evaluation of the surface, because it depends largely on the experience of the technician. Therefore, the main objectives of this work are to increase the spatial resolution and eliminate the dependence on the technician's experience. Therefore, we compare the simulated Ronchigrams obtained by lateral shear interferometry, whose profiles are cosine, with Ronchigrams obtained experimentally. We present the simulation algorithm for the Ronchigrams of spherical and aspherical surfaces based on the expressions of a lateral shear interferometer. We show the results, of the comparison between simulated Ronchigrams (ray tracing and lateral shear interferometry) and experimental Ronchigrams.

Key words: Ronchi test, aspherical surfaces, lateral shear interferometry