Patent ID: 7016030

Claim:
A method, for evaluating the reflection coating uniformity of an optical component that has a concave reflective optical surface, that comprises the steps of: (a) providing an illumination source of divergent radiation having a first wavelength; (b) positioning the optical component so that its concave reflective optical surface transforms diverging radiation from the source of divergent radiation into a converging beam at a focused point where an image of the source of divergent radiation is created; (c) positioning a spatially imaging radiation detector far from the focused point such that substantially the entire surface of the detector is illuminated by the beam reflected from the concave surface; (d) creating a recorded image by recording a first image that is reflected from the concave reflective optical surface to thereby geometrically map lateral positions on the concave reflective optical surface of the optical component to lateral positions of the spatially imaging detector; (e) analyzing intensity variations across the recorded image to determine reflectivity variations across the optical surface; (f) extrapolating reflection coating uniformity information from the reflectivity variations; and (g) optionally, repeating steps (a) through (b) one or more times as desired using divergent radiation with a different wavelength in each repetition.