New deformable mirror technologies

Adaptive optics is a very powerful technique for several scientific and technological experiments. Successful applications of deformable mirrors (DMs) were achieved in our laboratory in the fields of ultra-broadband parametric amplifiers compression and shaping in the NIR and mid-IR, high order harmonics generation, microscopy, high peak power lasers and adaptive time preserving monochromators. Although many research groups have been working on the realization of new deformable mirrors, the universal component has not been found yet and each application requires an ad-hoc solution. The properties and design rules of each DM will be described together with the experimental methods and results. The resistive electrodes deformable mirror and the photo-controlled DM recently developed in our laboratory will be described in detail.