Aberration measurement from confocal axial intensity response using neural network

We propose a high-speed, parallel system for lens aberration measurement employing a confocal optical setup. This method uses a non-interferometric, conventional confocal axial response to determine the spherical aberration coefficient of a confocal objective. The aberration coefficients are successfully calculated from the intensity axial response by employing a neural network. It is estimated that the system can find out the aberration coefficients of 10,000 microlenses in 20 seconds of measurement and 1 second of calculation time. Our experimental results also demonstrate the practicality of this system. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.