Adaptive Optics Tutorial


Adaptive Optics Tutorial


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Adaptive Optics (AO) were originally developed for the field of Astronomy to remove image blurring aberrations induced by wavefronts propagating through Earth’s atmosphere. Thorlabs has developed imaging solutions that utilize AO technology to provide wavefront corrections leading to aberration-free imaging, including: Deformable Mirrors (DM), Piezoelectric Deformable Mirrors, CCD-Based & CMOS-Based Shack-Hartmann Wavefront Sensors, and AO kits.

Deformable Mirrors
Our Multi-DM micromachined deformable mirror systems provide advanced optical control. These mirrors are capable of changing shape in order to correct a highly distorted incident wavefront. Micro-electro-mechanical (MEMS) deformable mirrors are currently the most widely used technology in wavefront shaping applications given their versatility, maturity of technology, and the high resolution wavefront correction that they afford.

Piezoelectric Deformable Mirror
Thorlabs' Piezoelectric Deformable Mirror is used to correct highly distorted wavefronts. This deformable mirror is ideal for correcting distortions that result from common sources of wavefront aberrations, such as astigmatism and coma, and includes a separate mechanism to adjust for tip and tilt.

Shack-Hartmann Wavefront Sensors
Thorlabs offers Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors in two sensor types: CMOS and CCD. Our CMOS sensors are capable of providing frame rates of up to 1120 Hz (microlens array dependent), provide accurate measurements of the wavefront shape and intensity distribution of beams. Our CCD cameras are only available in our AO kits and incorporate cameras with 1.3 megapixel resolution. These wavefront sensors are available with either a chrome-masked microlens array for use in the 300 - 1100 nm range or an AR-coated microlens array for use in the 400 - 900 nm range. The former has a lenslet pitch of 150 µm whereas the latter is available with a lenslet pitch of either 150 or 300 µm. These three offerings allow the end user to select a system that offers high spatial resolution, enhanced contrast, or high wavefront accuracy.

AO Kits
Each Thorlabs Adaptive Optics (AO) Kit is a complete adaptive optics imaging solution, including a deformable mirror, wavefront sensor, control software, and optomechanics for assembly. These precision wavefront control devices are useful for beam shaping, microscopy, laser communications, and retinal imaging as well as educational demonstrations.

Introduction:
Adaptive optics (AO) is a rapidly growing multidisciplinary field encompassing physics, chemistry, electronics, and computer science. AO systems are used to correct (shape) the wavefront of a beam of light. Historically, these systems have their roots in the international astronomy and US defense communities. Astronomers realized that if they could compensate for the aberrations caused by atmospheric turbulence, they would be able to generate high resolution astronomical images; with sharper images comes an additional gain in contrast, which is also advantageous for astronomers since it means that they can detect fainter objects that would otherwise go unnoticed. While astronomers were trying to overcome the blurring effects of atmospheric turbulence, defense contractors were interested in ensuring that photons from their high-power lasers would be correctly pointed so as to destroy strategic targets. More recently, due to advancements in the sophistication and simplicity of AO components, researchers have utilized these systems to make breakthroughs in the areas of femtosecond pulse shaping, microscopy, laser communication, vision correction, and retinal imaging. Although dramatically different fields, all of these areas benefit from an AO system due to undesirable time-varying effects. 

Typically, an AO system is comprised from three components: (1) a wavefront sensor, which measures these wavefront deviations, (2) a deformable mirror, which can change shape in order to modify a highly distorted optical wavefront, and (3) real-time control software, which uses the information collected by the wavefront sensor to calculate the appropriate shape that the deformable mirror should assume in order to compensate for the distorted wavefront. Together, these three components operate in a closed-loop fashion. By this, we mean that any changes caused by the AO system can also be detected by that system. In principle, this closed-loop system is fundamentally simple; it measures the phase as a function of the position of the optical wavefront under consideration, determines its aberration, computes a correction, reshapes the deformable mirror, observes the consequence of that correction, and then repeats this process over and over again as necessary if the phase aberration varies with time. Via this procedure, the AO system is able to improve optical resolution of an image by removing aberrations from the wavefront of the light being imaged.

The Wavefront Sensor:
The role of the wavefront sensor in an adaptive optics system is to measure the wavefront deviations from a reference wavefront. There are three basic configurations of wavefront sensors available: Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors, shearing interferometers, and curvature sensors. Each has its own advantages in terms of noise, accuracy, sensitivity, and ease of interfacing it with the control software and deformable mirror. Of these, the Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor has been the most widely used.

A Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor uses a lenslet array to divide an incoming beam into a bunch of smaller beams, each of which is imaged onto a CCD camera, which is placed at the focal plane of the lenslet array. If a uniform plane wave is incident on a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor (refer to Fig. 1), a focused spot is formed along the optical axis of each lenslet, yielding a regularly spaced grid of spots in the focal plane. However, if a distorted wavefront (i.e., any non-flat wavefront) is used, the focal spots will be displaced from the optical axis of each lenslet. The amount of shift of each spot’s centroid is proportional to the local slope (i.e., tilt) of the wavefront at the location of that lenslet. The wavefront phase can then be reconstructed (within a constant) from the spot displacement information obtained (see Fig. 2).

Wavefront correction

Figure 1. When a planar wavefront is incident on the Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor's microlens array, the light imaged on the CCD sensor will display a regularly spaced grid of spots. If, however, the wavefront is aberrated, individual spots will be displaced from the optical axis of each lenslet; if the displacement is large enough, the image spot may even appear to be missing. This information is used to calculate the shape of the wavefront that was incident on the microlens array.

Screen Shots of Spotfield and Wavefront

Figure 2. Two Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor screen captures are shown: the spot field (left-hand frame) and the calculated wavefront based on that spot field information (right-hand frame).

Comparison of sensitivity and dynamic range

Figure 3. Dynamic range and measurement sensitivity are competing properties of a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor. Here, f, Δy, and d represent the focal length of the lenslet, the spot displacement, and the lenslet diameter, respectively. The equations provided for the measurement sensitivity θ min and the dynamic range θmax are obtained using the small angle approximation. θmin is the minimum wavefront slope that can be measured by the wavefront sensor. The minimum detectable spot displacement Δymin depends on the pixel size of the photodetector, the accuracy of the centroid algorithm, and the signal to noise ratio of the sensor. θmax is the maximum wavefront slope that can be measured by the wavefront sensor and corresponds to a spot displacement of Δymax, which is equal to half of the lenslet diameter. Therefore, increasing the sensitivity will decrease the dynamic range and vice versa.

The four parameters that greatly affect the performance of a given Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor are the number of lenslets (or lenslet diameter, which typically ranges from ~100 – 600 μm), dynamic range, measurement sensitivity, and the focal length of the lenslet array (typical values range from a few millimeters to about 30 mm). The number of lenslets restricts the maximum number of Zernike coefficients that a reconstruction algorithm can reliably calculate; studies have found that the maximum number of coefficients that can be used to represent the original wavefront is approximately the same as the number of lenslets. When selecting the number of lenslets needed, one must take into account the amount of distortion s/he is trying to model (i.e., how many Zernike coefficients are needed to effectively represent the true wave aberration). When it comes to measurement sensitivity θmin and dynamic range θmax, these are competing specifications (see Fig. 3 to the right). The former determines the minimum phase that can be detected while the latter determines the maximum phase that can be measured. 

A Shack-Hartmann sensor’s measurement accuracy (i.e., the minimum wavefront slope that can be measured reliably) depends on its ability to precisely measure the displacement of a focused spot with respect to a reference position, which is located along the optical axis of the lenslet. A conventional algorithm will fail to determine the correct centroid of a spot if it partially overlaps another spot or if the focal spot of a lenslet falls outside of the area of the sensor assigned to detect it (i.e., spot crossover). Special algorithms can be implemented to overcome these problems, but they limit the dynamic range of the sensor (i.e., the maximum wavefront slope that can be measured reliably). The dynamic range of a system can be increased by using a lenslet with either a larger diameter or a shorter focal length. However, the lenslet diameter is tied to the needed number of Zernike coefficients; therefore, the only other way to increase the dynamic range is to shorten the focal length of the lenslet, but this in turn, decreases the measurement sensitivity. Ideally, choose the longest focal length lens that meets both the dynamic range and measurement sensitivity requirements.

The Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor is capable of providing information about the intensity profile as well as the calculated wavefront. Be careful not to confuse these. The left-hand frame of Fig. 4 shows a sample intensity profile, whereas the right-hand frame shows the corresponding wavefront profile. It is possible to obtain the same intensity profile from various wavefuncton distributions.

Schematic of a sample intensity distribution and wavefront profile for the WFS

Figure 4. Several pieces of information are provided by the Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor, including information about the total power at each lenslet and the calculated wavefront distribution present. Here, the left-hand frame shows a sample intensity profile, while the right-hand frame shows the corresponding wavefront.

The Deformable Mirror:
The deformable mirror (DM) changes shape in response to position commands in order to compensate for the aberrations measured by the Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor (refer to the Aberrations tab to learn more about the aberrations that the DM can correct). Ideally, it will assume a surface shape that is conjugate to the aberration profile (see Fig. 5). In many cases, the surface profile is controlled by an underlying array of actuators that move in and out in response to an applied voltage. Deformable mirrors come in several different varieties, but the two most popular categories are segmented and continuous (see Fig. 6). Segmented mirrors are comprised from individual flat segments that can either move up and down (if each segment is controlled by just one actuator) or have tip, tilt, and piston motion (if each segment is controlled by three actuators). These mirrors are typically used in holography and for spatial light modulators. Advantages of this configuration include the ability to manufacture the segments to tight tolerances, the elimination of coupling between adjacent segments of the DM since each acts independently, and the number of degrees of freedom per segment. However, on the down side, the regularly spaced gaps between the segments act like a diffraction pattern, thereby introducing diffractive modes into the beam. In addition, segmented mirrors require more actuators than continuous mirrors to compensate for a given incoming distorted wavefront. To address the optical problems with segmented DMs, continuous faceplate DMs (such as those included in our AO Kits) were fabricated. They offer a higher fill factor (i.e., the percentage of the mirror that is actually reflective) than their segmented counterparts. However, their drawback is that the actuators are mechanically coupled. Therefore, when one actuator moves, there is some finite response along the entire surface of the mirror. The 2D shape of the surface caused by displacing one actuator is called the influence function for that actuator. Typically, adjacent actuators of a continuous DM are displaced by 10-20% of the actuation height; this percentage is known as the actuator coupling. Note that segmented DMs exhibit zero coupling but that isn’t necessarily desirable.

Wavefront reflection from a DM

Figure 5. The aberration compensation capabilities of a flat and MEMS deformable mirror are compared. (a) If an unabberated wavefront is incident on a flat mirror surface, the reflected wavefront will remain unabberated. (b) A flat mirror is not able to compensate for any deformations in the wavefront; therefore, an incoming highly aberrated wavefront will retain its aberrations upon reflection. (c) A MEMS deformable mirror is able to modify its surface profile to compensate for aberrations; the DM assumes the appropriate conjugate shape to modify the highly aberrated incident wavefront so that it is unaberrated upon reflection.

segmented vs continuous mirrors

Figure 6. Cross sectional schematics of the main components of BMC's continuous (left) and segmented (right) MEMS deformable mirrors.

The range of wavefronts that can be corrected by a particular DM is limited by the actuator stroke and resolution, the number and distribution of actuators, and the model used to determine the appropriate control signals for the DM; the first two are physical limitations of the DM itself, whereas the last one is a limitation of the control software. The actuator stroke is another term for the dynamic range (i.e., the maximum displacement) of the DM actuators and is typically measured in microns. Inadequate actuator stroke leads to poor performance and can prevent the convergence of the control loop. The number of actuators determines the number of degrees of freedom that the mirror can correct for. Although many different actuator arrays have been proposed, including square, triangular, and hexagonal, most DMs are built with square actuator arrays, which are easy to position on a Cartesian coordinate system and map easily to the square detector arrays on the wavefront sensors. To fit the square array on a circular aperture, the corner actuators are sometimes removed. Although more actuators can be placed within a given area using some of the other configurations, the additional fabrication complexity usually does not warrant that choice.

Cross-like pattern shown on DM

Figure 7. A cross-like pattern is created on the DM surface by applying the voltages necessary for maximum deflection of the 44 actuators that comprise the middle two rows and middle two columns of the array. The frame on the left shows a screen shot of the AO kit software depicting the DM surface, whereas the frame on the right, which was obtained through quasi-dark field illumination, shows the actual DM surface when programmed to these settings. Note that the white light source used for illumination is visible in the lower right-hand corner of the photograph.

Figure 7 (left frame) shows a screen shot of a cross formed on the 12 x 12 actuator array of the DM included with the adaptive optics kit. To create this screen shot, the voltages applied to the middle two rows and middle two columns of actuators were set to cause full deflection of the mirror membrane. In addition to the software screen shot depicting the DM surface, quasi-dark field illumination was used to obtain a photograph of the actual DM surface when programmed to these settings (see Fig. 7, right frame)

The Control Software:
In an adaptive optics setup, the control software is the vital link between the wavefront sensor and the deformable mirror. It converts the wavefront sensor’s electrical signals, which are proportional to the slope of the wavefront, into compensating voltage commands that are sent to each actuator of the DM. The closed-loop bandwidth of the adaptive optics system is directly related to the speed and accuracy with which this computation is done, but in general, these calculations must occur on a shorter time scale than the aberration fluctuations. 

In essence, the control software uses the spot field deviations to reconstructs the phase of the beam (in this case, using Zernike polynomials) and then sends conjugate commands to the DM. A least-squares fitting routine is applied to the calculated wavefront phase in order to determine the effective Zernike polynomial data outputted for the end user. Although not the only form possible, Zernike polynomials provide a unique and convenient way to describe the phase of a beam. These polynomials form an orthogonal basis set over a unit circle with different terms representing the amount of focus, tilt, astigmatism, comma, et cetera; the polynomials are normalized so that the maximum of each term (except the piston term) is +1, the minimum is –1, and the average over the surface is always zero. Furthermore, no two aberrations ever add up to a third, thereby leaving no doubt about the type of aberration that is present.


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