Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor

A Shack-Hartmann is a type of wavefront sensor. It is commonly used in adaptive optics systems. It consists of an array of lenses (called lenslets) of the same focal length. Each is focused onto a photon sensor (typically a CCD array or quad-cell). The local tilt of the wavefront across each lens can then be calculated from the position of the focal spot on the sensor. Any phase aberration can be approximated to a set of discrete tilts. By sampling an array of lenslets all of these tilts can be measured and the whole wavefront approximated.

Since only tilts are measured the Shack-Hartmann can not detect discontinuous steps in the wavefront.