Silicon adaptive optic systems using micromirrors

Abstract

Many factors contribute to the aberrations induced in an optical system. Atmospheric turbulence between the object and the imaging system, physical or thermal perturbations in optical elements degraded the system's point spread function, and misaligned optics are the primary sources of aberrations that affect image quality. The design of a non- conventional real-time adaptive optic system using a micro- mirror device for wavefront correction is presented. The adaptive optic system uses a VLSI circuit that can be reconfigured for use with many wavefront sensor including the Hartmann, shearing, and curvature wavefront sensors. The unconventional adaptive optic imaging systems presented offer advantages in speed, cost, power consumption, and weight. Experimental and modeling results that characterizes the performance of each wavefront sensor in the micro-mirror adaptive optic system are presented.