Error evaluation of aspheric surfaces and calibration of the test instrument

As aspheric surfaces are more often used in optical systems, suitable error evaluation methods and suitable accuracy calibration methods for related test instruments are urgently required. The two unsolved but important issues are addressed. For evaluation of aspheric surfaces, a scheme is proposed to separate the surface errors into radius error and local error. The effects of the two errors on image quality are discussed. For test instrument calibration, a practical method using a defocused spherical surface is described and verified with an absolute testing instrument based on laser deflectometry, which was developed at Beijing Institute of Technology. The feasibility of the schemes is shown and experimental results are presented.