Induced aberrations by combinative convex/concave interfaces of refractive‐index‐mismatch and capability of adaptive optics correction

Abstract

AbstractAdjustable fluidic adaptive lenses have been extensively studied because of the advantage of changing the geometric shape or refractive index without any mechanical moving parts. However, the induced aberrations were rarely discussed before. We address this issue by first clarifying the aberrations experimentally due to injected fluidic volumes. Experimental results show that under the injected fluidic volume of 0.1 ml, the main aberrations come from Z1 (piston), Z2 (tip), and Z5 (defocus) and Zernike coefficients are 0.97, 0.31, and 1.31 μm, respectively. In what follows, a series of tests specifically designed to explore the convex/concave interfaces and refractive‐index‐mismatch (RIM). Furthermore, we demonstrate the capability of adaptive optics (AO) correction on aberrations induced by combinative effects of multiple layers with convex/concave interfaces and RIM. A microelectro‐mechanical system (MEMS) deformable mirror (DM) with 140 actuators was used in conjunction with Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor to realize the experimentation. In particular, we consider the aberration introduced by interfaces of RIM between water/oil and glass. After AO correction, we can improve wavefront with root mean square (RMS) of 2.17–0.17 μm for an interface between water and glass. As for the interface between oil and glass, we are capable of improving RMS of 0.24–0.10 μm. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 53:2610–2615, 2011; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.26323