Simulation of a Shack-Hartmann Sensor

For a full characterization of the electromagnetic field, information about not only the energy density but also the phase are of critical value. While in the simulation we can calculate this information directly from the numerical data, in a real laboratory more sophisticated approaches are necessary. A common tool to measure this information is the Shack-Hartmann sensor, which uses a microlens array (MLA) to reconstruct the wavefront of an incoming field through the displacements of the corresponding spots in the focal plane. For the purpose of investigating this kind of devices we demonstrate the simulation of a Shack-Hartmann sensor, with different wavefronts as input.