We have tested an aluminum-coated Iris AO Micro-Electrical Mechanical System (MEMS) segmented Deformable Mirror (DM) for its behavior in the presence of high energy 532 nm laser light. The DM was subject to several tests in which the laser power and the duration of its incidence was varied. The DM experienced an irradiance of 94.5 W cm^-2 at the maximum laser power of 2 W. A slight permanent reduction in the amount of bow in each segment was observed. This is most likely due to annealing. The mirror remained fully functional during and after the tests. Measurements of the mirror's temporal stability and position repeatability were performed before the laser test. We found a 1.28 nm rms variation in the bow of segments that is highly correlated over the 16 minute test. The mirror's ability to return to its initial position was within the 1.34 nm rms instrument noise. These results are encouraging for applications such as the laser uplink correction of the Visible Light Laser Guidestar Experiment (Villages) and future multi-Laser Guidestar systems (LGS).

Date Published: 17 February 2010
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 7595, MEMS Adaptive Optics IV, 759506 (17 February 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.846037

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7595:
MEMS Adaptive Optics IV
Scot S. Olivier; Thomas G. Bifano; Joel A. Kubby, Editor(s)