Building an Adaptive Optics Demonstrator System
Adaptive optics is used to correct the wavefront of a beam of light. It originated in the field of astronomy to correct for atmospheric turbulence. This project was to construct an adaptive optics (AO) system kit from Thorlabs. An AO system consists of three parts: a deformable mirror (DM), a wavefront sensor (WFS), and control software. This system is to be used for future teaching purposes to help others learn about adaptive optics. The AO system came with instruction manuals, which were followed to build and calibrate the system. The instructions included building and aligning the system, how to install and use the software, and how to calibrate deformable mirror. A calibrated system for this project means having the deformable mirror imaged onto the wavefront sensor, with the center of the mirror on the center of the WFS. Also, a flat wavefront, which is achieved by eliminating the tip/tilt of the mirror. Eliminating the tip/tilt reduces the RMS amplitude to a value below 0.200 microns. This causes the wavefront to fold in on itself. We set up a focal plane detector behind beam splitter as a demonstration of what would be seen if this were used with a telescope. The image that should be seen on the focal plane detector is the beam with a diffraction pattern called and Airy Function. The AO system is now ready to be used to teach others about adaptive optics.