Evaluation of microfabricated deformable mirror systems

William D. Cowan; Max K. Lee; Victor M. Bright; Byron M. Welsh

doi:10.1117/12.321696

11 September 1998 Evaluation of microfabricated deformable mirror systems

William D. Cowan, Max K. Lee, Victor M. Bright, Byron M. Welsh

Proceedings Volume 3353, Adaptive Optical System Technologies; (1998) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.321696
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 1998, Kona, HI, United States

Abstract

This paper presents recent result for aberration correction and beam steering experiments using polysilicon surface micromachined piston micromirror arrays. Microfabricated deformable mirrors offer a substantial cost reduction for adaptive optic systems. In addition to the reduced mirror cost, microfabricated mirrors typically require low control voltages, thus eliminating high voltage amplifiers. The greatly reduced cost per channel of adaptive optic systems employing microfabricated deformable mirrors promise high order aberration correction at low cost. Arrays of piston micromirrors with 128 active elements were tested. Mirror elements are on a 203 micrometers 12 by 12 square grid. The overall array size is 2.4 mm square. The arrays were fabricated in the commercially available DARPA supported MUMPs surface micromachining foundry process. The cost per mirror array in this prototyping process is less than 200 dollars. Experimental results are presented for a hybrid correcting element comprised of a lenslet array and piston micromirror array, and for a piston micromirror array only. Also presented is a novel digital deflection micromirror which requires no digital to analog converters, further reducing the cost of adaptive optics system.

Citation Download Citation

William D. Cowan, Max K. Lee, Victor M. Bright, and Byron M. Welsh "Evaluation of microfabricated deformable mirror systems", Proc. SPIE 3353, Adaptive Optical System Technologies, (11 September 1998); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.321696

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