Closed-loop adaptive optical system with bimorph mirror and Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor - advantages and limitations

Summary form only given. The opportunities of adaptive optical system used for correction of distortions of wave-front are considered. The system consists of a bimorph mirror with a control system and Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensor. Adaptive system can correct for the low-order aberrations in the real-time - the frequency of corrected aberrations is less than 10 Hz. One of the basic advantages of this system is the opportunity of correction of slowly varying low order wave-front distortions. The high damage threshold of the bimorph mirror allows to use the given system for correction of the wave front of high-power lasers. The limitation of our system is the decrease of accuracy and multi-step procedure of correction due to nonlinearities of bimorph mirror. However, the closed loop of a feedback allows partially to compensate these disadvantages.