Variable focal length on-and off-axis deformable concave and convex mirror and its application for thermal lens compensation

Author

Schwarz, Josef ; Rambo, Patrick ; Smith, Ian ; Porter, John ; Ramsey, Marc ; Headley, Daniel

Author_Institution

Sandia Nat. Labs., Albuquerque, NM, USA

fYear

2005

fDate

12-17 June 2005

Firstpage

34

Abstract

We have improved deformable mirror approach to allow good parabolic deformation for efficient thermal lens compensation. Our design uses an annulus to push onto the back surface of a flat mirror substrate, simply supported at the outer edge, thereby creating a parabolic deformation within the encircled area. We built an assembly using a 25.4 mm diameter, 1 mm thick mirror with a wedge of less than 10 arc seconds that was deformed with a 12 mm diameter annulus at the back of the mirror. Using a Shack-Hartman wavefront sensor we performed careful measurements to characterize the performance of the mirrors.

Keywords

adaptive optics; compensation; mirrors; optical design techniques; optical focusing; thermal lensing; wavefront sensors; 1 mm; 12 mm; 25.4 mm; Shack-Hartman wavefront sensor; convex mirror; mirror characterization; off-axis deformable concave mirror; parabolic deformation; thermal lens compensation; variable focal length; Assembly; Laboratories; Laser excitation; Lenses; Mirrors; Power lasers; Power measurement; Pump lasers; Thermal lensing; Turning;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe, 2005. CLEO/Europe. 2005 Conference on

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8974-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CLEOE.2005.1567823

Filename

1567823