Reliability of MEMS deformable mirror technology used in adaptive optics imaging systems

Abstract

Deformable mirror (DM) technology based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology produced by Boston Micromachines Corporation has been demonstrated to be an enabling component in a variety of adaptive optics applications such as high contrast imaging in astronomy, multi object adaptive optics, free-space laser communication, and microscopy. Many of these applications require DMs with thousands of actuators operating at frame rates up to 10 kHz for many years requiring sufficient device reliability to avoid device failures. In this paper we present improvements in MEMS deformable mirrors for reliability along with test data and device lifetime prediction that show trillions of actuator-cycles can be achieved without failures.