Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 6, 2026

Shaping the Amplitude and Phase of Laser Beams by Using a Phase-only Spatial Light Modulator
Published on: January 28, 2019
Strehl ratio and modulation transfer function for segmented mirror telescopes as functions of segment phase error
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697, USA. gchanan@galaxy.ps.uci.edu
Abstract:
We derive the Strehl ratio for a segmented mirror telescope as a function of the rms segment phase error and the observing wavelength, with and without the effects of the atmosphere. A simple analytical expression is given for the atmosphere-free case. Although our specific results are in the context of the Keck telescope, they are presented in a way that should be readily adaptable to other segmented geometries. We also derive the corresponding modulation transfer functions. These results are useful in determining how accurately a segmented mirror telescope needs to be phased for a variety of observing applications.

