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International audience; CMOS image sensors (CIS) are promising candidates as part of optical imagers for the plasma diagnostics devoted to the study of fusion by inertial confinement. However, the harsh radiative environment of Megajoule Class Lasers threatens the performances of these optical sensors. In this paper, the vulnerability of CIS to the transient and mixed pulsed radiation environment associated with such facilities is investigated during an experiment at the OMEGA facility at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), Rochester, NY, USA. The transient and permanent effects of the 14 MeV neutron pulse on CIS are presented. The behavior of the tested CIS shows that active pixel sensors (APS) exhibit a better hardness to this harsh environment than a CCD. A first order extrapolation of the reported results to the higher level of radiation expected for Megajoule Class Laser facilities (Laser Megajoule in France or National Ignition Facility in the USA) shows that temporarily saturated pixels due to transient neutron-induced single event effects will be the major issue for the development of radiation-tolerant plasma diagnostic instruments whereas the permanent degradation of the CIS related to displacement damage or total ionizing dose effects could be reduced by applying well known mitigation techniques.

International audience; Assessment of the performance degradation caused by the mid-spatial frequency (MSF) structure on optical surfaces often relies on a perturbation method that dovetails with the familiar sequence of models based on geometrical and physical optics. In the case of imaging systems, the perturbative step yields estimates of wavefronts in the exit pupil which are, in turn, used to extract performance measures such as MTF, PSF, and Strehl ratio. To date, the validity of that perturbation appears to be poorly understood. We present methods to estimate the errors of this approach and thereby arrive at a rule of thumb for its accuracy: the error is approximately equal to the RMS of the MSF structure at its source multiplied by the square of the ratio between a particular Fresnel zone size and a characteristic length of the MSF structure.

International audience; In diamond-machined freeform manufacturing processes, a tool-tip often leaves behind characteristic mid-spatial frequency (MSF) structures on the optical surface. Unwanted movement between the tool-tip and the part results in MSF structures with random variations. Here, we analyze the effects of these MSF structures on the system's optical performance and derive simple analytic estimates for the optical transfer function in terms of the parameters of these structures. These expressions are expected to aid in MSF tolerancing.