Deformable mirrors for high-power lasers

Abstract

The development of laser technique and various applications of laser radiation requires the use of devices that can modify as well as correct for the wavefront of laser beams. In these cases, the use of deformable mirrors is simply very important. In the high-power laser setups, the task of correction of laser aberrations assumes the use of thermally stabilized optical elements. We consider that two types of wavefront correctors are the most well-suitable for such an application: bimorph deformable mirrors and stacked-actuator (SADM) ones. Bimorph deformable mirrors proved their reliability and could be used in high-power industrial lasers. They can perfectly correct for low-order and are simple in manufacturing. On the contrary stacked-actuator mirror can reproduce high-order wavefront aberrations and thus have high spatial resolution of control elements and might be applied in fast adaptive optical systems to correct for laser radiation distributed through turbulent media.