Compliant deformable mirror approach for wavefront improvement.

Autor: Clark III, James H., Penado, F. Ernesto
Předmět:
Zdroj: Optical Engineering; Apr2016, Vol. 55 Issue 4, p043107-1-043107-10, 10p
Abstrakt: We describe a compliant static deformable mirror approach to reduce the wavefront concavity at the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer (NPOI). A single actuator pressing on the back surface of just one of the relay mirrors deforms the front surface in a correcting convex shape. Our design uses the mechanical advantage gained from a force actuator sandwiched between a rear flexure plate and the back surface of the mirror. We superimpose wavefront contour measurements with our finite element deformed mirror model. An example analysis showed improvement from 210-nm concave-concave wavefront to 51-nm concave-concave wavefront. With our present model, a 100-nm actuator increment displaces the mirror surface by 1.1 nm. We describe the need for wavefront improvement that arises from the NPOI reconfigurable array, offer a practical design approach, and analyze the support structure and compliant deformable mirror using the finite element method. We conclude that a 20.3-cm-diameter, 1.9-cm-thick Zerodur® mirror shows that it is possible to deform the reflective surface and cancel out three-fourths of the wavefront deformation without overstressing the material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Databáze: Complementary Index