Patent ID: 7187815

Claim:
A device for relaying an incoming optical wavefront comprising: an input aperture for receiving the wavefront, the input aperture including a plurality of input subapertures for sampling the wavefront at different locations; an output aperture including a plurality of output subapertures, each output subaperture located in a same relative position within the output aperture as a corresponding input subaperture is located within the input aperture; and a wavefront relay comprising a plurality of optical pathways, each optical pathway optically coupling an input subaperture to the corresponding output subaperture while substantially maintaining a relative phase of the wavefront between subapertures; wherein the optical pathways all have substantially a same optical path length; and wherein the optical path lengths of the optical pathways deviate from a nominal optical path length and the deviation causes a wavefront from the output aperture to come to a focus; and wherein the deviation of an optical pathway is a function of a radial location of the corresponding output subaperture.