Segmented silicon-micromachined microelectromechanical deformable mirrors for adaptive optics

Deformable mirrors improve optical efficiency of a system by correcting the wave front aberration caused by imperfections in the system components or by turbulent atmosphere in case of telescope optics. Micromachined mirror technology has the potential to substantially reduce the cost of adaptive optics systems. First, a brief review of the work in this field is presented with the goal of informing the reader of the challenges in the micromachined adaptive optics and the implementation tradeoffs including stress-induced curvature of multilayer mirrors. Then, recent results on the silicon micromachined, hybrid integrated microelectromechanical deformable mirrors for adaptive optics developed at the University of Colorado are presented. Various microfabrication processes including surface micromachining, bulk micromachining, and flip-chip assembly are implemented to fabricate high optical fill factor and large-stroke piston-type micromirror arrays. The achieved micromirror deflection for some designs is in the range of 2 to 3.5 μm, which results in the operating wavelength within infrared spectrum. Techniques to integrate microlenses on top of the micromirrors using self-aligned solder or transfer of ultrasmooth mirror plates on top of the micromirror actuators using flip-chip create high optical fill factor devices. Experimental results of aberration correction with such devices are presented