Demonstration of a 17 cm robust carbon fiber deformable mirror for adaptive optics
Carbon-fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite is an attractive material for fabrication of optics due to its high stiffness-to-weight ratio, robustness, zero coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), and the ability to replicate multiple optics from the same mandrel. We use 8 and 17 cm prototype CFRP thin-shell deformable mirrors to show that residual CTE variation may be addressed with mounted actuators for a variety of mirror sizes. We present measurements of surface quality at a range of temperatures characteristic of mountaintop observatories. For the 8 cm piece, the figure error of the Al-coated reflective surface under best actuator correction is {approx}43 nm RMS. The 8 cm mirror has a low surface error internal to the outer ring of actuators (17 nm RMS at 20 C and 33 nm RMS at -5 C). Surface roughness is low (< 3 nm P-V) at a variety of temperatures. We present new figure quality measurements of the larger 17 cm mirror, showing that the intra-actuator figure error internal to the outer ring of actuators (38 nm RMS surface with one-third the actuator density of the 8 cm mirror) does not scale sharply with mirror diameter.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 1026468
- Report Number(s):
- LLNL-PROC-499224; TRN: US201120%%876
- Resource Relation:
- Journal Volume: 8149; Conference: Presented at: SPIE Optics & Photonics, San Diego, CA, United States, Aug 21 - Aug 25, 2011
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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