Noninterferometric topography measurements of fast moving surfaces

The topography of moving surfaces is recovered by noninterferometric measurements. The phase reconstruction is derived by measuring the intensities of a backscattered pulsed laser light and solving the transport intensity equation (TIE). The TIE is solved by expanding the phase into a series of Zernike polynomials, leading to a set of appropriate algebraic equations. This technique, which enables us to make a direct connection between experiments and the TIE, has been successfully tested in gas gun experiments. In particular, the topographies of a moving projectile and the free surface of a shocked target were recovered. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America