Bimorph deformable mirrors for high-order aberrations simulation

The most important part of any adaptive optical system is a deformable mirror. One of the most widely used type of such mirrors are the bimorph ones. In fact, there is no problem to manufacture a wide aperture bimorph wavefront correctors that perfectly can compensate low-order laser aberrations. But if one needs a tiny deformable mirror to correct for high order aberrations with reasonable amplitude, he usually will use stacked actuator mirror or a MEMS one. In this presentation we suggest the new design and technology of production of a small size bimorph mirrors to be used to correct for atmospheric phase fluctuations. Our mirror has the diameter of 30 mm and 37 control electrodes (mirror with 20 mm and 63 control electrodes is being developed). The resonance frequency of 13.2 kHz is due to its small diameter. At the same time, large number of electrodes allows to reproduce high order aberrations. To manufacture this device two modern technologies are used: ultrasonic welding and laser engraving technology.