Applied Materials Technology Limited - Low Cost Custom Laser Reflectors

应用材料技术公司（AMT）提出了一个为期12个月、耗资18.7万英镑的原型项目，以推进可解耦可变形镜（DDM）的开发，这是一种生产可负担得起的、定制的、高精度光学设备反射镜的新方法。DDM将允许光束质量转换，即从高像差光束到接近1.1的M2。AMT最初将DDM瞄准激光市场；自2009年以来，这个庞大的行业经历了强劲、持续的增长。许多激光用户需要高光束质量，目前通过固有的高光束质量激光器和/或校正光学，包括自适应光学（AO），以高成本实现。高光束质量激光器市场在成本、系统质量、体积和效率方面展开竞争；一种以低成本生产紧凑、轻便、高效和高光束质量激光器的方法具有高度破坏性的潜力。DDM将允许以低成本从紧凑、高效、低质量的激光源产生高质量的光束。DDM和AO有一些相似之处；每一个都涉及到光束特性的测量，以及一个计算机驱动的执行器阵列来控制控制反射光束特性的可变形镜的几何形状。DDM中的关键创新步骤允许在与执行器阵列解耦时保持镜像的几何形状，然后将定制的镜像提供给客户，执行器阵列由镜像制造商重用。该项目的主要阶段是：完成镜面的设计和材料；建立生产工艺；进行试验以确认方法的有效性。通过采用全新的定制镜子方法，AMT将以自适应光学成本的1/40到1/10的目标价格将DDM推向市场，从而节省成本并开辟潜在的新应用领域。产品的及时性和潜在需求得到了一系列领先的行业专家和高价值制造公司的支持。

Applied Materials Technology (AMT) proposes a 12 month, £187k, development of prototypeproject to progress Decoupleable Deformable Mirrors (DDM), a novel approach to theproduction of affordable, custom, high precision mirrors for optical devices. DDM will allowbeam quality to be transformed i.e. from a highly aberrated beam to M2 approaching 1.1.AMT will initially target DDM at the laser market; a large industry that has experiencedstrong, continued growth since 2009. Many laser users demand high beam quality, currentlyachieved at high cost by inherently high beam quality lasers, and/or by corrective optics,including adaptive optics (AO). The high beam quality laser market competes on cost, systemmass, volume & efficiency; a method for producing compact, light, efficient & high beamquality lasers at low cost has the potential to be highly disruptive. DDM will allow highquality beams to be produced from compact, efficient, low quality laser sources at low cost.DDM & AO share some similarities; each involve the measurement of beam characteristics,and a computer-driven actuator array to control the geometry of the deformable mirror whichgoverns the reflected beam characteristics. Crucial innovative steps in DDM allow the mirrorgeometry to be maintained when decoupled from the actuator array, with the custom mirrorthen being provided to the customer and the actuator array being reused by the mirrormanufacturer.The principal stages of the project are: to finalise the design & materials for the mirror; toestablish a manufacturing process; to conduct trials to confirm the validity of the approach.By taking a clean-sheet approach to the custom mirrors, AMT will bring DDM to market at atarget price of 1/40 to 1/10 the cost of adaptive optics, offering cost saving and opening uppotential new areas for use. The timeliness and potential demand for the product have beensupported by a range of leading industry experts and high value manufacturing companies.