Real-time wavefront correction system using a zonal deformable mirror and a Hartmann sensor

We have developed an adaptive optics system that corrects up to five waves of 2nd-order and 3rd-order aberrations in a high-power laser beam to less than 1/10th wave RMS. The wavefront sensor is a Hartmann sensor with discrete lenses and position-sensitive photodiodes; the deformable mirror uses piezoelectric actuators with feedback from strain gauges bonded to the stacks. The controller hardware uses a VME bus. The system removes thermally induced aberrations generated in the master-oscillator-power-amplifier chains of a dye laser, as well as aberrations generated in beam combiners and vacuum isolation windows for average output powers exceeding 1 kW. The system bandwidth is 1 Hz, but higher bandwidths are easily attainable