Characterization and closed-loop performance of a liquid mirror adaptive optical system

Abstract

A deformable mirror based on the principle of total internal reflection of light from an electrostatically deformed liquid-air interface was realized and used to perform closed-loop adaptive optical (AO) correction on a collimated laser beam aberrated by a rotating phase disk. Equations describing the resonant and oscillatory behavior of the liquid system were obtained and applied to the system under consideration. Characterization of the mirror included open-and closed-loop frequency responses, determination of rise times, the damping times of the liquid, and the influence of liquid surface motion in the absence of external optical aberrations. The performance of the AO system was determined for static and dynamic aberrations for various sets of system parameters. The predictions of the general expressions were compared to the results of the experimental realization and were found to be in good agreement.

Laser beam shaping with magnetic fluid-based liquid deformable mirrors

“…However, this mirror is limited by its orientation, thus cannot control the surface deformation accurately. Have et al [23] described a deformable mirror based on the principle of total internal reflection of light from an electrostatically deformed liquid-air interface, which can produce a large stroke deformation, but is only suitable for the inclined incident light. Déry et al [24] presented a ferrofluid deformable mirror which uses an aluminum-coated reflective PDMS thin film as the mirror surface.…”

Modal dynamics of magnetic-liquid deformable mirrors

“…MLDMs are not the only type of deformable mirror based on the actuation of a liquid. A deformable mirror based on the principle of total internal reflection of light from an electrostatically deformed liquid-air interface is presented in [1]. In the case of a MLDM, the shape that the surface of the liquid takes is determined by the addition of the component vectors of the magnetic field produced by each actuator [2].…”