Adaptive Optical Imaging

Babkock proposed the use of a wavefront sensor to detect wavefront aberration information and then utilize deformable optical elements to generate controllable optical phase shifts for compensating wavefront aberrations, giving rise to the fundamental concept of adaptive optics. Leighton developed a first-order active optical system for compensating image motion in astronomical telescopes, achieving the highest image quality at that time. Techniques for adaptive control of electromagnetic wavefronts emerged in the field of microwaves.