Digital-holographic detection in the off-axis pupil plane recording geometry for deep-turbulence wavefront sensing.

This paper uses wave-optics and signal-to-noise models to explore the estimation accuracy of digital-holographic detection in the off-axis pupil plane recording geometry for deep-turbulence wavefront sensing. In turn, the analysis examines three important parameters: the number of pixels across the width of the focal-plane array, the window radius in the Fourier plane, and the signal-to-noise ratio. By varying these parameters, the wave-optics and signal-to-noise models quantify performance via a metric referred to as the field-estimated Strehl ratio, and the analysis leads to a method for optimal windowing of the turbulence-limited point spread function. Altogether, the results will allow future research efforts to assess the number of pixels, pixel size, pixel-well depth, and read-noise standard deviation needed from a focal-plane array when using digital-holographic detection in the off-axis pupil plane recording geometry for estimating the complex-optical field when in the presence of deep turbulence and detection noise.