Numerous LASER applications benefit from adaptive optics:

• compensation for temporal dispersion in pulsed lasers,
• improving beam quality for soldering/cutting applications.

Thanks to its deformable mirrors technology and control systems, ALPAO can offer you specific solutions for your low power LASER application. Do not hesitate to contact us to get more information about our products.

Deformable mirrors: record stroke and exceptional temporal stability in a compact casing.

Unrivalled strokes: +/-45µm focus and astigmatism

ALPAO has developed an exclusive deformable mirrors technology. Thanks to the large stroke of the mirrors in the Hi-Speed Magnetic Deformable Mirrors range, you will be able to compensate for very large aberrations (see figure 1).

Compactness: 1.5mm distance between two actuators

So, with a size of 9.0mm, the Hi-Speed DM52-15 includes 52 actuators. With a low 1.5 magnification factor (6.5mm pupil), it is possible to construct a compact instrument with few instrumental aberrations.

The Hi-Speed DM97-15 mirror allows performances to be improved even further thanks to its 97 actuators in a clear apertur of 13.5mm. The accuracy of the optical correction increases with the number of actuators.

Outstanding temporal response

Figure 2: typical temporal response

The excellent temporal performance of ALPAO's Hi-Speed DM also allows a reduction in the temporal errors traditionally present in large-stroke mirrors. The rise time for a step response is typically equal to 1milli-second.

The figure on the right shows the typical Zernike modes that are achievable with the Hi-Speed DM97-15 (wavefront peak-to-valley amplitude).

 

The characteristics of the Hi-Speed DM Series mirror are summarised in the next two tables. For more information you can contact us via the site (click here) or you can download the information brochure in the Downloads section.

Table 1: 1.5mm between two actuators

Table 2: 2.5mm between two actuators

(1) -> in closed loop

(2) -> first resonance of the membrane

(3) -> All ALPAO mirrors can be coated with different metallic materials (silver, aluminium, gold,...).

 

 

Improving LASER beams requires measuring their quality either indirectly via a wavefront sensor or directly using an appropriate device (beam analyser, power meter,.). The many types of sensor integrated into ALPAO's ACE will ensure that your application's performance is improved.

Do not hesitate to contact us by clicking here.

Thanks to the flexibility of the ACE, it is thus possible to gett all the potential of adaptive optics by integrating it into the system you want to develop.

ALPAO also offers two products (described below):

• AOS-0: system optimised for R&D
• AOS-1: closed-loop system with exceptional performance (500Hz frame rate, low-noise camera, mirror with 241 actuators).

 

ALPAO AOS-0: Open and flexible system for teaching and R&D

This plug-and-play system has been specially designed for:

1. engineers and scientists studying adaptive optics, the laws of control and real-time processing,
2. the teaching of adaptive optics.

The AOS-0 workbench includes all the components necessary to simulate a complete adaptive optics system:

• a Hi-Speed ALPAO DM52-15 mirror (including the control electronics)
• a wavefront sensor
• an imaging camera
• a rotating turbulence screen
• an optical source
• the opto-mechanical parts
• Matlab® software to control the system.
• a Matlab® licence (if the user doesn't have one).

Thanks to the ALPAO CORE ENGINE (ACE) architecture and the AOS-0 workbench, it is possible to develop control methods going from the simple law of integration right up to the most advanced solutions such as Kalman filtering. The real-time access to all data (residual errors, wavefront, camera images) makes developing your project easier.

The choice of Matlab® allows the user to benefit from the support of the very large user community and the numerous forums associated with it.

Thanks to the AOS-0, you don't need to be a specialist to do adaptive optics but you can become one if you want to!

For more information you can contact us via the site (click here) or you can download the information brochure in the Downloads section.

 

AOS-1: high-performance adaptive optics loop

The AOS-1 system is based on:

• a Hi-Speed DM241-25 Deformable Mirror with 241 actuators spread across a diameter of 40mm (17 x 17 matrix).
• an ultra-sensitive wavefront sensor manufactured by ALPAO and based on an EMCCD camera(16x16 micro-lenses for the Fried configuration)
• a real-time computer operating at 500 fps and based on the ALPAO Core Engine (ACE).

For more information you can contact us via the site (click here) or you can download the information brochure in the Downloads section.

Page under construction