Adaptive Optics System Based on a Compact Liquid Crystal Wavefront Corrector

Physical Optics Corporation

Torrance , CA

• Physical Optics Corporation (POC) developed an adaptive wavefront corrector based on liquid crystal elements.

• Liquid crystal activated distributed aperture (LCADAP) wavefront corrector system designed to compensate both piston and tilt wavefront aberrations.
• Development of the control algorithm and control software for regulating the phase-only spatial light modulator (PO-SLM) and liquid crystal microlens array (LC-MLA) elements of LCADAP.
• Development of electronic addressing hardware for PO-SLM and LC-MLA control.
• Fabrication of electro-optical elements; and integration of a PO-SLM, a LC-MLA, and plastic microlens arrays into a single multi-aperture wavefront corrector package.
• System Specifications
  • Aperture - 6.4 mm x 6.4 mm
  • Total number of pixels - 64 (8´8 rectangular array)
  • Fill factor - 90%
  • Response of phase compensating components -
    0.1-1 s
  • Compensation limit: 3 mrad for local tilt; 2 p phase shift for piston

• LCADAP addresses two major markets:
• Optical testing market, which is part of $1.4B (2003) market for nondestructive testing (NDT) equipment, projected to grow at an average annual growth rate of 5.1% according to GB-1774 Report by Business Communications Co., Inc. (www.bccresearch.com).
• Ophthalmology, where it can be used for surgical vision correction with a market niche of $3.2B in 2004 estimate (www.opticsreport.com).

• Adaptive optics, a powerful means for sharpening telescope images blurred by Earth's atmosphere, are finding wide applications at NASA for ground-based observation of the stars, sun, and planets, and for satellite tracking. Most adaptive optics systems for correction of wavefront distortion such as NASA's Palomar Adaptive Optics System are based on deformable mirrors.
• The LCADAP wavefront corrector can compensate wavefront aberration and temporal variations in large NASA telescopes and antenna systems.
• While most NASA applications of LCADAP are related to astronomy, other applications are in medical imaging, where adaptive optics are being used for high resolution ophthalmologic instrumentation and non- destructive testing of optical instrumentation.

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Curator: SBIR Support                   6/22/05