Micro-electro-mechanical deformable mirrors for aberration control in optical systems

Controlling optical aberrations is one of the enduring problems in optics. Recent advances in adaptive optics for astronomical applications have shown the promise of adaptive optics technology for controlling aberrations. Micro-electro-mechanical deformable mirrors (MEM-DMs) offer an alternative to conventional adaptive optics which, due to the inexpensive nature of MEM-DM technology, will enable a wide range of commercial and scientific applications for optical wave front control. In this paper we describe MEM-DMs, present results of modelling the performance of an MEM-DM for optical aberration control, and present results of experiments to verify that MEM-DMs can control optical aberrations