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Deformable mirrors (DMs) are a critical technology to enable coronagraphic direct imaging of exoplanets with current and planned ground - and space-based telescopes as well as future mission concepts that aim to image exoplanet types ranging from gas giants to Earth analogs. This places several requirements on the DMs such as requires a large actuator count (>3000), fine surface height resolution (<10 pm), and radiation hardened driving electronics with low mass and volume. We present the design and testing of a flight-capable, miniaturized DM controller. Having achieved contrasts on the order of 5x10-9 on a coronagraph testbed in vacuum in the high contrast imaging testbed facility at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), we demonstrate that the electronics are capable of meeting the requirements of future coronagraph-equipped space telescopes. We also report on functionality testing onboard the high-altitude balloon experiment Planetary Imaging Concept Testbed Using a Recoverable Experiment Coronagraph, which aims to directly image debris disks and exozodiacal dust around nearby stars. The controller is designed for the Boston Micromachines Corporation Kilo-DM and is readily scalable to larger DM formats. The three main components of the system (the DM, driving electronics, and mechanical and heat management) are designed to be compact and have low-power consumption to enable its use not only on exoplanet missions, but also in a wide-range of applications that require precision optical systems, such as direct line-of-sight laser communications. The controller is capable of handling 1024 actuators with 220 V maximum dynamic range, 16-bit resolution, 14-bit accuracy, and 1 kHz operating frequency. The system fits in a 10 x 10 x 5 cm3 volume, weighs <0.5 kg, and consumes <8 W. We have developed a turnkey solution reducing the risk for future missions.
Stellar coronagraphs rely on deformable mirrors (DMs) to correct wavefront errors and create high contrast images. Imperfect control of the DM limits the achievable contrast and, therefore, the DM control electronics must provide fine surface height
The search for exoplanets is pushing adaptive optics systems on ground-based telescopes to their limits. One of the major limitations at small angular separations, exactly where exoplanets are predicted to be, is the servo-lag of the adaptive optics
Current and future high-contrast imaging instruments require extreme adaptive optics (XAO) systems to reach contrasts necessary to directly image exoplanets. Telescope vibrations and the temporal error induced by the latency of the control loop limit
We present the conceptual design and initial development of the Hysteretic Deformable Mirror (HDM). The HDM is a completely new approach to the design and operation of deformable mirrors for wavefront correction in advanced imaging systems. The key t
The Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization (PIAA) coronagraph is a high performance coronagraph concept able to work at small angular separation with little loss in throughput. We present results obtained with a laboratory PIAA system including active w