For more than two decades, Northrop Grumman Xinetics has been the principal supplier of small deformable mirrors that enable adaptive optical (AO) systems for the ground-based astronomical telescope community. With today’s drive toward extremely large aperture systems, and the desire of telescope designers to include adaptive optics in the main optical path of the telescope, Xinetics has recognized the need for large active mirrors with the requisite bandwidth and actuator stoke. Presented in this paper is the proposed use of Northrop Grumman Xinetics’ large, ultra-lightweight Silicon Carbide substrates with surface parallel actuation of sufficient spatial density and bandwidth to meet the requirements of tomorrow’s AO systems, while reducing complexity and cost.

Date Published: 7 August 2014
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 9151, Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation, 915108 (7 August 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2057377

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9151:
Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation
Ramón Navarro; Colin R. Cunningham; Allison A. Barto, Editor(s)