Inexpensive Adaptive Optics

The ingenious system called adaptive optics, known for its computer control of subdivided, individually angled mirrors is an efficient but rather expensive way of correcting distortions in laser beams. The mirrors automatically adjust until an undistorted beam is obtained. This process is accomplished in a way, formerly thought unachievable – by a single large mirror.

Today, a Sandia National Laboratories’ tool that efficiently and nonetheless inexpensively uses a single mirror to achieve some of the same effects, has received a U.S. patent, issued back in 2007.

Poor Man’s Adaptive Optics

The Sandia device, which resembles an inexpensive vise, similar to those bolted to many home workshop benches, functions as a kind of poor man’s adaptive optics. It corrects optical distortions simply through pressure that changes the convexity or concavity of a single reflecting surface.

We can’t compensate for small scale aberrations, but certain large scale beam distortions are correctable with this tool.

Jens Schwarz, Principal Investigator, Sandia National Laboratories

The method already has improved the beam quality of Sandia’s huge Z-Beamlet laser. Due to the improvement, the laser can now fire every two hours instead of every four because the device pre-corrects for distortions caused by heat, says Schwarz.

Figure 1. Daniel Headley (left), Marc Ramsey, and Jens Schwarz examine the performance of one of their optical clamps as it corrects for laser beam distortion in Sandia’s Z-beamlet laser. Image Credit: Randy Montoya

Beam Correction

Similar beam corrections, of course, can be achieved using tens-hundreds of thousands of dollars through traditional adaptive optics. Numerous small reflecting mirrors, controlled by a computer, adjust within milliseconds to correct beam distortions reported by sensors farther down the line.

But for the overwhelming majority of laser users who do not require such fine control, deformation of a single mirror through convex or concave deformation applied through a single actuator may be the ticket, especially when the price is expected to be only a few thousand dollars. Commercial interest in the inexpensive device already has been expressed.

Reverse use of the technique could deliberately focus the beam to interrogate points of distant interest. This mode of use detects chemical or biological agents introduced at battlefields many miles away, a technique called laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy. “Because the mirror can change the focus of a laser beam quickly and rapidly, a laser beam could interrogate molecules at a variety of distances and the results would be visible through backscattered light,” says the principal investigator.

Coping with Distortions in the Beam Itself

Distortions happen when new energies are injected into the lasing system to create more powerful beams. These injections are achieved by racks of lamps that flare briefly. The effect resembles old-fashioned photographic flashbulbs, sending an energy pulse into the laser medium of doped glass where the beam is forming.

Figure 2. Jens Schwarz adjusts his group’s newly patented Sandia optical tool that pre-corrects for laser distortions. Image Credit: Randy Montoya

When the laser beam traverses the doped glass, it stimulates the material to release energy that adds to the beam’s strength – an effect known as gain. But the exterior of the doped glass — closer to the flashlamps — is unavoidably heated more than its interior. The temperature difference modifies the refractive index, focusing the beam to a point some meters away instead of allowing it to continue to infinity.

Rather than alter the flashlamps, or gain medium, Schwarz, with the aid of Marc Ramsey and Daniel Headley, used a single flexible mirror to pre-correct for the distortion to take place later in the beam’s passage.

Achievement of the Corrective Effect

The corrective effect is achieved by placing a flat mirror between two concentric rings of different sizes – one stationary and one free. A screw-drive turned either by fingertips or by a motor (the motor raises the price of the laser), applies a force to the free ring. In doing so, the free ring bends the mirror a few microns, thus changing its focal length. The orientation of the large and small rings determines whether the distortion is concave or convex.

The method has been shown to work over a wide range of laser beam energies, ranging from 30 millijoules to 500 joules.

The motivation behind this innovative work, says Schwarz, is that “It’s customary to use a static concave mirror — or a combination of appropriate lenses — and hope it’s correcting well for distortions in the lensing system you have. But rather than buy a succession of lenses or mirrors, we thought: Let’s see if we can do the job more simply and inexpensively by using only one mirror with a flexible focal length.”

Acknowledgments

Descriptions of the work and its applications have been published in the February 2006 Applied Physics B: Lasers and Optics and the November 2006 Optics Express. Other authors in addition to Schwarz, Ramsey and Headley include Ian Smith and John Porter.
The device, listed as a “Variable Focal Length Deformable Mirror”, is issued as U.S. Patent No. 7,229,178.

This article was updated on the 28^th January, 2020