TNO is developing Deformable Mirror (DM) technology, targeted for aberration correction in high-end Adaptive Optics (AO) applications in the field of lithography, astronomy, space and laser communication. The heart of this deformable mirror technology is a unique actuator technology based on the variable reluctance principle. The main advantages of this technology are the inherent high reliability, linearity (>99%), and high efficiency in terms of force per volume and unit power. Based on this actuator technology TNO built and tested a prototype DM, with 57 actuators, and a mirror diameter of Ø160mm. The test results show a highly linear actuator response, with less than 1% hysteresis over a stroke of 40μm. Atmospheric aberration correction has been shown with these DM’s in a free space laser-communication bread board. The same actuator technology is also used in the application of a highly compact Fine Steering Mirror (FSM), with an overall volume of Ø27x30mm, with a Ø20mm mirror. This FSM is targeted for satellite-based laser-communication terminals. Furthermore, a design study has been carried out to show the scalability of this technology towards large (~Ø1m to ~Ø3m) adaptive (secondary) mirrors with several hundreds, up to thousands of actuators. In this paper these different DM and FSM’s are discussed, and the latest test results obtained with the DM prototypes are presented.

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Stefan Kuiper, Niek Doelman, Jet Human, Rudolf Saathof, Wimar Klop, and Matthew Maniscalco, "Advances of TNO’s electromagnetic deformable mirror development," Proc. SPIE 10706, Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation III, 1070619 (Presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation: June 12, 2018; Published: 10 July 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2311981.