Wave front active control by a digital-signal-processor-driven deformable membrane mirror

The correction of the beam wave front degradations, introduced by optical aberrations or by medium inhomogeneities, has a widespread relevance in several areas of optics. We describe here an adaptive optics system aimed to the optical optimization of the beam wave front in few seconds using an electrostatic deformable mirror and a controller based on a fixed-point digital signal processor. The correction system acts the wave front modification by a deformable mirror in closed loop with a genetic algorithm. We also studied the dynamics of the mirror for its use in beam wander correction due to atmospheric turbulence in free space classical and quantum optical communications. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.