Lensmeter using a lateral shearing interferometer

The use of a laser shear interferometer for checking the collimation condition within a lensmeter is proposed. The interferometer consist of a wedged glass plate which produces a shear along the orthogonal direction to the wedge; when the fringes at the center of the pattern are parallel to the shear, the collimation condition is attained. The feasibility of the proposal for measuring the vertex power is experimentally shown and the accuracy of the method is under 5% of the measured value being an improvement to the commercial instruments based on the focusing of a reticule.