Enhancing the dynamic range of deformable mirrors with compression bias

Abstract

We report the design and testing of a compression-biased thermally-actuated deformable mirror that has a dynamic range larger than the limit imposed by pure-bending stress, negligible higher-order-mode scattering, and a linear defocus response and that is vacuum compatible. The optimum design principles for this class of actuator are described and a mirror with 370 mD dynamic range is demonstrated. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement