Deformable mirror with thermal actuators

Low-cost adaptive optics is applied in lasers, scientific instrumentation, ultrafast sciences, and ophthalmology. These applications demand that the deformable mirrors used be simple, inexpensive, reliable, and efficient. We report a novel type of ultralow-cost deformable mirror with thermal actuators. The device has a response time of ∼5 s, an actuator stroke of ∼6 µm, and temporal stability of ∼λ/10 rms in the visible range and can be used for correction of rather large aberrations with slow-changing amplitude.