Silicon carbide deformable mirror with 37 actuators for adaptive optics

Abstract

We present a prototype of a silicon carbide (SiC) deformable mirror (DM) for high power laser applications. The DM has a continuous SiC faceplate, the diameter and the thickness of which are 100 mm and 2 mm, respectively, and 37 stack-type piezoelectric actuators arranged in a rectangular grid. Compared with the glass faceplates used for conventional DMs, SiC has a high thermal diffusivity that effectively minimizes mirror distortions due to thermal gradients. The faceplate is thick enough for possible integration with monolithic cooling channels inside the faceplate. The faceplate without cooling channels presented in this paper has a high bending stiffness compared with glass DMs, but the proposed actuator configuration has flexure supports to reduce the shear stress at the adhesive while preserving optical performances. To examine the characteristics of the SiC DM, we simulated influence functions (IFs) by using a finite element analysis and then compared these results with the IF measured by using an optical interferometer. The optical performance of the DM was verified by generating Zernike polynomial modes based on the measured IF.