Experimental analysis of the fitting error of diffractive liquid crystal wavefront correctors for atmospheric turbulence corrections

An experimental analysis was conducted to investigate the fitting error of diffractive liquid crystal wavefront correctors (LCWFCs). First, an experiment was performed to validate the theoretical equations presented in our previous work Cao et al., 2009 [9]. The results showed an apparent discrepancy between the theoretical and measured results for the fitting error. This difference was examined and the influence of nonlinearities and rounding errors generated by the LCWFC was analyzed and discussed. Finally, the fitting error formula of the LCWFC was modified to obtain a more effective tool for the design of LCWFCs for atmospheric turbulence correction. These results will be useful for researchers who design liquid crystal adaptive optics systems for large-aperture ground-based telescopes.