MEMS practice, from the lab to the telescope

摘要

Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology can provide for deformablemirrors (DMs) with excellent performance within a favorable economy of scale.Large MEMS-based astronomical adaptive optics (AO) systems such as the GeminiPlanet Imager are coming on-line soon. As MEMS DM end-users, we discuss ourdecade of practice with the micromirrors, from inspecting and characterizingdevices to evaluating their performance in the lab. We also show MEMS wavefrontcorrection on-sky with the "Villages" AO system on a 1-m telescope, includingopen-loop control and visible-light imaging. Our work demonstrates the maturityof MEMS technology for astronomical adaptive optics.