Performance evaluation of micromachined mirror arrays for adaptive optics

The performance of different MEMS mirrors from Boston University, MEMS Optical LLC, University of Colorado and OKO Technologies was studied in respect to an application in a model-free adaptive optics system. The frequency response characteristic was determined in a simple laser beam focusing set-up. Closed-loop adaptation experiments were performed using a VLSI controller system implementing a stochastic parallel gradient descent optimization algorithm. The system behavior using different MEMS mirror types, esp. adaptation speed, was compared.