Shaping Light: MOEMS Deformable Mirrors for Microscopes and Telescopes

Micromachined deformable mirrors (DMs) have enabled rapid advances in applications ranging from large telescope astronomy and free space laser communication to biological microscopy and retinal imaging over the past decade. In this talk I describe our efforts at Boston University and at Boston Micromachines Corporation to design, fabricate, and control MOEMS DMs for adaptive optics (AO) applications. Integration of the DMs in AO systems is described, along with results demonstrating unprecedented advances in resolution and contrast in microscopes and telescopes challenged by unavoidable wavefront aberrations. MEMS-DM research offers the rare opportunity to introduce technology that is both more economical and more capable than the state-of-the-art.