The Development and Optimisation of High Bandwidth Bimorph Deformable Mirrors

Abstract

Our first mirror designs were based on a standard bimorph construction and exhibited a resonant frequency of 1 kHz with a maximum stroke of +/- 5 mu m. These devices were limited by the requirement to have a "dead space" between the inner active area and the mirror boundary. This was necessary to ensure that the requirements for both the stroke and the static boundary conditions at the edge of the mirror could be met simultaneously, but there was a significant penalty to pay in terms of bandwidth, which is inversely proportional to the square of the full mirror diameter. In a series of design iteration steps, we have created mounting arrangements that seek not only to reduce dead space, but also to improve ruggedness and temperature stability through the use of a repeatable and reliable assembly procedure. As a result, the most recently modeled mirrors display a resonance in excess of 5 kHz, combined with a maximum stroke in excess of +/- 10 mu m. This has been achieved by virtually eliminating the "dead space" around the mirror. By careful thermal matching of the mirror and piezoelectric substrates, operation over a wide temperature range is possible. This paper will discuss the outcomes from the design study and present our initial experimental results for the most recently assembled mirror