RAPID: High-stroke, high-order MEMS deformable mirrors for extremely large telescopes

世界各地的少数研究小组正在设计新的“超大望远镜”。这些ELT将有史无前例的大小(25到42米！)的主镜。为了利用这些望远镜可以提供的非常高的角分辨率和图像清晰度，有必要对自适应光学(AO)技术进行相当大的升级。天文光学系统允许天文学家纠正太空中遥远物体发出的光穿过地球大气层时产生的扭曲。随着望远镜变得越来越大，AO必须在越来越大的区域内进行校正。此外，由于图像的分辨率随镜子的大小而变化，因此，如果要获得最佳的图像，就必须随着镜子的大小而改进。目前的光学技术已经取得了长足的进步，现在已经很成熟和健壮了。但对于具有ELT的AO来说，挑战是相当大的。声光系统的一个组件是“可变形镜”(DM)，用于快速(每秒一千次)校正大气引入的误差。今天使用的DMS不能进行ELTS所需的那种纠正。加州大学圣克鲁斯分校的Joel Kubby博士正在开发新的、更大的、反应更灵敏的DM，以满足未来的ELTS需求。库比博士的工作得到了美国国家科学基金会天文科学部通过其先进技术和仪器计划的支持。

New "extremely large telescopes" are being designed by a small number of groups around the world. These ELTs will have primary mirrors of unprecedented sizes (25 to 42 meters!). In order to take advantage of the very high angular resolution and image clarity that these telescopes can deliver, it is necessary to make considerable upgrades to the technology of adaptive optics (AO). AO allows astronomers to correct distortions introduced when the light from distant objects in space passes through the earth's atmosphere. As ttelescopes get larger, the AO must correct over an increasingly large area. Furthermore, since the image resolving capabilities scale with the size of the mirror, the AO techniques must improve along with the mirror size if the best possible images are to be achieved.Current AO technology has come a long way and is now well established and robust. But the challenges for AO with ELTs are considerable. One component of AO systems is a "deformable mirror" (DM) used to rapidly (a thousand times a second) correct the errors introduced by the atmosphere. DMs in use today cannot make the kinds of corrections needed for ELTs. Dr. Joel Kubby of the University of California - Santa Cruz is developing new, larger, and more responsive DMs to meet the coming needs of ELTs. Dr. Kubby's work is supported by NSF's Division of Astronomical Sciences through its Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation program.