Historical Development of the Shack-Hartmann Wavefront Sensor

Abstract

The Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor is a simple and elegant means for measuring the shape of a wavefront. This technique has found application to a wide variety of applications from improving images of the vast cosmos to the more down to earth measurements of the aberrations of the eye. This technique has become widespread throughout the world with hundreds of millions of astronomical images benefiting from the process to millions of corrective surgeries that will be performed in upcoming years to enhance vision. It is rare for a technology to have such a dramatic impact on a single field, let alone multiple fields as the Shack-Hartmann sensor. This paper describes the history and evolution of the technology and covers some of the many applications found today