UC Santa Cruz

I present the design, construction, and on-sky results of the world`s first micro-electrical mechanical systems (MEMS) deformable mirror (DM)-based adaptive optics (AO) system used for laser uplink correction. This system was integrated into the beam transfer optics of the laser guidestar at the University of California Observatory`s 3-meter Shane telescope at Mt. Hamilton, and provided correction of the quasi-static phase aberrations in the 3.5 Watt sodium. A novel extension of this research as a means for producing multiple LGS spots (asterisms) from a single laser beam is also presented.

I also developed the architecture for the woofer-tweeter controller for the new ShaneAO system. This controller uses the natural modal basis set of each of the deformable mirrors, and takes into account the spatial and temporal characteristics of each DM to provide and efficient and effective method for correcting for atmospheric turbulence.