Upgrade of Zygo Fizeau interferometer

该项目涉及我们率先开发的一类新的光学元件。它们是由磁场形成的液体镜（铁磁流体）。这些光学元件具有重要的固有优点，即液体自然地以非常高的精度遵循等势面。因此，我们可以制造具有非常高性能的廉价高质量光学元件。它们允许我们采用具有任何形状的波前，并且在反射之后，生成具有我们想要的形状的波前。这一壮举是光学的核心。我们最近已经证明，我们的反射镜可以产生的幅度远大于现有的固体变形反射镜的变形。由于它们的性能和低成本，这些反射镜具有相当大的技术和经济潜力。该技术比传统的自适应光学更加通用，因为它可以产生幅度从一个波的一小部分到数百个波的变形。

The project is concerned with the development of a new class of optical elements that we have pioneered. They are liquid mirrors (ferrofluids) shaped by magnetic fields. These optical elements have the important intrinsic advantage that liquids naturally follow equipotential surfaces to a very high precision. Consequently, we can make inexpensive high-quality optical elements that have very high performances. They allow us to take a wavefront having any shape and, after reflection, generate a wavefront having the shape that we desire. This feat is at the very heart of optics. We have recently demonstrated that our mirrors can generate deformations having amplitudes much larger than those of existing solid deformable mirrors. Because of their performance and low cost these mirrors have considerable technological and economical potentials. The technology is far more versatile than conventional adaptive optics because it can generate deformations having amplitudes ranging from a fraction of a wave to hundreds of waves.