Micromachined Deformable Mirrors for Beam Control and Imaging Applications

This contract develops and expands on the technology for micromachining silicon deformable mirrors as a result of work in Stanford research laboratories over the last 5 years. The commerical and military applications of this technology will be exploitedand specific uses will be investigated. Hardware specific to applications will be prepared and evaluated for a few selected uses.The optics industry has many applications for compact and inexpensive wavefront correctors. There are many civilian andmilitary uses for propagating laser beams or imaging through turbulent atmospheres. One specific application is to correct beams used in free space communication systems. Using an adaptive optic in any optical system can correct for thermally varyingconditions, and allows the system designer to use less expensive optical elements.