Assessment of wavefront distortion compensation efficiency using high-resolution piezoelectric deformable mirrors via reproduction of orthogonal Zernike polynomials

Subject of study. Bimorph- and piezoactuator-type piezoelectric deformable mirrors with a high spatial resolution of actuators are studied. Aim of study . The aim is to suppress the influence of atmospheric turbulence on the laser radiation wavefront (WF) using WF correctors with modal and local response functions of actuators through the reproduction of Zernike polynomials. Method . A Shack–Hartmann WF sensor is used to analyze the coefficients of the Zernike polynomials. The reproduction efficiency is evaluated using the maximum control voltage and residual root-mean-square (RMS) deviation as the criteria for reproduction. Main results . The bimorph-type piezoelectric WF correctors can reproduce Zernike polynomials up to the 7th order according to the Wyant classification, while the piezoactuator-type deformable mirror is capable of reconstructing Zernike polynomials up to the 8th order. The bimorph mirror more effectively compensates for large-scale aberrations of the WF with a large amplitude, whereas the piezoactuator WF corrector better reproduces high-order aberrations with larger amplitudes. Practical significance . The results obtained in this study can be applied to the correction of large- and small-scale aberrations in laser radiation propagating through atmospheric turbulence.