Segmented MEMS deformable-mirror for wavefront correction

Advances in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology are enabling the design and fabrication of new class of deformable mirrors (DM) for adaptive optics (AO). This paper presents a MEMS DM design that is suitable for a large range of applications. More than 7.5 μm of stroke has been demonstrated for this DM with 125 V drive. Other minor design variations have shown 1.63 μm step responses of 120 μs and 140 μs rise and fall times with only a 36 V drive. The DMs have excellent optical quality of 6-20 nm rms that varies with temperature only 0.56 nm/°C peak-to-valley.

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