56 results about "Membrane mirror" patented technology

An optical dispersion compensator including: a spacer element having a top surface and a bottom surface; a thin film, multi-layer mirror formed on the top surface of the spacer element, the thin film mirror having a thermally tunable reflectivity; a highly reflective mirror element formed on the bottom surface of the spacer element; and a heater element for controlling a temperature of the thermally tunable thin film mirror.

The thin-film mirror includes a pan-shaped housing having a pan surface and a hollow wall bordering the pan surface. The hollow wall has a mounting surface for thin reflecting film, which mounting surface is stepped above the pan surface. The hollow wall has an open portion opposite the mounting surface and accommodates a reinforcing member that rigidities the pan-shaped housing. A thin reflecting film that spans the pan surface is secured to the film mounting surface. The pan-shaped housing is a miterless one-piece structure which can be in the form of a trapezoid. Hollow fillets can be provided at the acute angle corners of the trapezoid. The fillets constitute an additional mounting surface portion for the thin reflecting film and are formed such that no corner of the mounting surface has an acute angle.

In an optics system, a flexible mirror is deformed with an electromagnetic force. In one embodiment, an electrical current is directed through the mirror, or a conductor attached to the mirror, in the presence of a magnetic field. In one application in an adaptive optics system, the membrane mirror is used in a wavefront sensor. Deformed to oscillate between convex and concave positions, the mirror is used to alternately defocus a received light signal for determining aberrations in the light signal. By detecting aberrations in the light signal, the adaptive optics system can correct for those aberrations.

A deformable membrane mirror and a related method for its use, the mirror including a deformable membrane having a reflective front face and a back face, and further including electrodes located on both sides of the membrane, to provide a desired surface contour without imparting a concave bias to the membrane. The electrodes include a first set of electrodes spaced from the back face of the membrane, and at least one additional electrode spaced from the front face of the membrane.

The present invention provides a method of constructing a thin film mirror, which method comprises: (i) attaching a thin film (72) to a suction chamber (68), the suction chamber (68) having edges which are for attaching the thin film (72) and which lie in a desired geometry for the thin film mirror to be constructed; (ii) applying a partial vacuum to the suction chamber (68) such that tension is introduced into the thin film (72); (Hi) adjusting the partial vacuum to form the thin film mirror but with the thin film mirror achieving the desired geometry only over a portion of the thin film mirror; (iv) providing first tensioning means (78, 80) and locally adjusting the first tensioning means (78, 80) such that the portion of the thin film mirror which achieves the desired geometry is increased, the first tensioning means (78, 80) being in contact with the surface of the thin film (72) adjacent to the edge of the suction chamber (68) at a first distance which is substantially uniform from the edge of the suction chamber (68); and providing second tensioning means (82, 84) and locally adjusting the second tensioning means (82, 84) such that the portion of the thin film mirror which achieves the desired geometry is further increased, the second tensioning means (82, 84) being in contact with the surface of the thin film (72) adjacent to the first tensioning means (78, 80) at a second distance which is substantially uniform from the edge of the suction chamber (68), and which second distance is greater than the first distance from the edge of the suction chamber (68) of the first tensioning means (78, 80).