Fast modulation and dithering on a pyramid wavefront sensor bench

A pyramid wavefront sensor (PWFS) bench has been setup at NRC-Herzberg (Victoria, Canada) to investigate, first, the feasibility of a double roof prism PWFS, and second, test the proposed pyramid wavefront sensing methodology to be used in NFIRAOS for the Thirty Meter Telescope. Traditional PWFS require shallow angles and strict apex tolerances, making them difficult to manufacture. Roof prisms, on the other hand, are common optical components and can easily be made to the desired specifications. Understanding the differences between a double roof prism PWFS and traditional PWFS will allow for the double roof prism PWFS to become more widely used as an alternative to the standard pyramid, especially in a laboratory setting. In this work, the response of the double roof prism PWFS as the amount of modulation is changed, is compared to an ideal PWFS modelled using the adaptive optics toolbox, OOMAO in MATLAB. The object oriented toolbox uses physical optics to model complete AO systems. Fast modulation and dithering using a PI mirror has been implemented using a micro-controller to drive the mirror and trigger the camera. The various trade offs of this scheme, in a controlled laboratory environment, are studied and reported.