Ferroelectric MEMS Integrated Deformable Mirror

The cryogenic and ambient telescopes proposed by NASA have one thing in common; imaging extra-solar planets demand large deformable mirrors (>10,000 channels) to achieve the high-resolution imaging. The system does not need high-speed and large strokes but will require a large channel count in the smallest possible package. The past few years have seen Xinetics increase the channel count while reducing the overall size of deformable mirrors. Progress made along these lines demonstrated the feasibility of 1-mm spaced actuators. Actuator spacing an order of magnitude smaller would further enhance resolution and provide a smaller and lighter package. MEMS technology has demonstrated spacing on the order of 100-mm but with certain very significant limitations with regard to polishing and coating. The high-resolution mirrors NASA needs must have superb surface figure and finish otherwise they will be of no use. This makes MEMS impractical for adaptive-optics systems. Deformable mirror development at Xinetics has demonstrated the NASA coating and surface requirements but not the small spacing. This proposal will investigate the feasibility of 100-mm spaced ferroelectric ceramic deformable mirrors. The adaptation of ion etching techniques such as those used to make diffractive optics can result in these small spaced mirrors.