Patent ID: 7388654

Claim:
A method for adjusting the depth of a cube-corner reflector apex location within a spherically mounted retroreflector (SMR) to partially compensate for radial and transverse errors caused by passing a laser light-beam through a window of the SMR comprising: selecting a number of values of depth d to be evaluated, where depth d is defined as a distance from a center of the SMR to the cube-corner apex; a selecting a range of angles of incidence A 1 of the laser beam on the window; calculating, for each value d, a radial error ΔR and a transverse error ΔD resulting from the window as a function of the angle of incidence A 1 over the selected range of angles of incidence; selecting a value of depth d that provides a smallest absolute value of errors for both the radial error ΔR and the transverse error based on results of the calculation; and adjusting the depth of the cube-corner apex within the spherically mounted retroreflector (SMR) to the selected value of d.