Correcting lens errors using quantum gases

Correcting lens errors using quantum gases

Researchers developed a technique to measure and correct for lens aberrations in an ultracold quantum gas experiment by using the gas itself to probe the optical phase. They split a laser beam into two paths using a spatial light modulator, passed the beams through optics to the quantum gas, and observed interference between them. By changing the relative phase and monitoring the gas density, they extracted the aberrated wavefront and corrected it with the modulator. This enabled high-precision tailoring of optical potentials below the imaging resolution.