An opto-electronic technique for high-resolution wave-front phase imagingis presented and demonstrated experimentally. The technique is analogousto the conventional Zernike phase-contrast approach, but uses modernspatial light modulator technology to increase robustness and improveperformance.

Because they provide direct measurements of wave-frontphase (rather than wave-front slope measurements, as in Shack-Hartmannsensors), robust phase-contrast sensors have potential applications inhigh-speed, high-resolution adaptive optic systems.

Advantages of theopto-electronic approach over alternative advanced phase-contrasttechniques (such as a related phase-contrast sensor which uses a liquid-crystal light valve exhibiting a Kerr-type optical response toperform Fourier filtering) are discussed. The SLM used for theexperimental results is a 128x128-element pixilated phase-only liquidcrystal spatial light modulator from Boulder Nonlinear Systems, Inc.