Design of lenses to project the image of a pupil in optical testing interferometers.

When an optical surface or lens in an interferometer (Twyman-Green or Fizeau interferometer) is tested, the wave front at the pupil of the element being tested does not have the same shape as at the observation plane, because this shape changes along its propagation trajectory if the wave front is not flat or spherical. An imaging lens must then be used, as reported many times in the literature, to project the image of the pupil of the system being tested over the observation plane. This lens is especially necessary if the deviation of the wave front from sphericity is large, as in the case of testing paraboloidal or hyperboloidal surfaces. We show that the wave front at both positions does not need to have the same shape. The only condition is that the interferograms at both places be identical, which is a different condition. This leads to some considerations that should be taken into account in the optical design of such lenses.