Performance of a reference-free wavefront sensor based on the Talbot effect under Gaussian illumination.

A reference-free wavefront reconstruction technique based on the Talbot sensor under Gaussian beam illumination is discussed in the paper. Since pit images are formed in several sequential planes due to the Talbot effect, it allows us to reconstruct the wavefront on the basis of two object self-images in nearby planes without any reference. Simulation results of the reference-free reconstruction of a defocus aberration of optical waves have been compared with the classical Talbot-sensor-based approaches. Additionally, the reconstruction error from the self-image of the gratings and the proposed reconstruction procedure that allows us to decrease wavefront estimation error are analyzed.