Boston Micromachines Corporation, a leading provider of MEMS-based deformable mirror (DM) products for adaptive optics systems, announced today that its Multi-DM deformable mirror is being used at the University of Rochester Center for Vision Science's Yoon Lab in its research to improve vision performance.
Research at the Yoon Lab endeavors to objectively understand optical quality of the eye and to improve visual performance by correcting the optical defects in the eye with various correction methods. Various factors are considered in the research including depth perception, binocular vision, and highly aberrated eyes vs. normal eyes. Boston Micromachines' deformable mirrors have been selected for use in several projects where adaptive optics is being used to correct aberrations in order to measure visual performance and understand the interaction between adaptation effects of the human visual system and the human brain.
"In our research we use adaptive optics to compensate for optical defects called wavefront aberration. The deformable mirror serves as the wavefront corrector and is used to restore the plane wavefront, which in turn will improve visual performance and to induce different aberrations for understanding their impacts on visual performance such as neural adaptation and depth of focus," said Geunyoung Yoon, Lab Director for the Yoon Lab at the University of Rochester Eye Institute. "We are pleased to be using Boston Micromachines' Multi-DM deformable mirror, which we selected because of its compact size and high number of actuators."
"The exciting work that is being conducted at the Yoon Lab is relevant to all as the loss of visual performance due to ocular aberrations and aging affects everyone's everyday life," said Paul Bierden, president and CEO of Boston Micromachines. "It is gratifying to see that the technical benefits provided by our innovative deformable mirrors continue to be part of the pioneering research done at The University of Rochester Eye Institute."
The Multi-DM
The Multi-DM offers sophisticated aberration compensation in an easy-to-use package. With 140 precisely controlled elements and low inter-actuator coupling, this system is ideal for a broad range of applications including as microscopy, retinal imaging, and laser beam shaping. The high speed, high precision driver electronics are easily controlled via USB interface. The DM is available in both continuous and segmented surfaces for adaptive optics or spatial light modulator applications. The DMs are capable of up to 5.5 µm stroke, 20 kHz frame rate, have sub-nm step size, and zero hysteresis.
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