About this job

Historically, optical fabrication tolerances have been specified by placing tolerances upon the figure and finish errors. Thereby, the figure error gives rise to the classical wavefront aberrations and can be well modelled with Zernike polynomials. It is characterized by low spatial frequency structures. Contrary, the finish error contains the high spatial frequency structures of the surface (micro-roughness) that produces wide-angle scatter. The mid-spatial frequency regime lies between the traditional figure and finish errors. It produces small angle scatter that broadens or smears out the image core and reduces for example the modulation transfer function of the system. Especially modern fabrication tech-nologies can exhibit strong signatures in the mid-spatial frequencies. Thus, being able to analyze the influence of mid-spatial frequency structures on optical performance is important for specifying optical surfaces. This thesis has to goal to develop a software tool for this purpose that can be readily used by optical engineers. Based on a literature study and the analysis of the theoretical framework, a software tool shall be developed within the Optical Scripting Language (OSL) of OHB. OSL is an API for general use optical engineering tasks written in Python. Following industry standards for programming, the software tool shall be validated with unit tests, documented with automatical-ly generated HTML documentation and verified in the laboratory with measurements on hardware using an experimental setup.

Responsibilities

– Literature study
– Analysis of the theoretical framework
– Development of a software tool for mid-spatial frequency analysis
– Documentation of the tool via Sphinx
– Validation of the tool via unit testing
– Verification of the tool via experimental measurements in the laboratory
– Support of optical engineers to use the software in their projects

Profile

– Student in the fields of physics, informatics, mathematics, aerospace-, mechanical-, electrical engineering or similar
– Advanced programming skills in Python (or Matlab)
– Teamplayer with good analytical skills
– Fluent English language skills

Optional Skills:
– Documentation via Sphinx
– Unit testing
– Optics