The Perspectives of Magnetic Fluid Deformable Mirrors for Adaptive Optics Systems

Recently, magnetic fluid deformable mirrors (MFDMs) were proposed as a novel type of wavefront correctors for adaptice optics (AO) systems, which offer cost and performance advantage:; over existing wavefront correctors. These mirrors are developed by coating the free surface of a magnetic fluid with a thin reflective film of nano-particles. The reflective surface of the mirrors can be deformed using a locally applied magnetic field and thus serves as a wavefront corrector. In this paper, the working principle of MFDMs is first presented, then the perspectives of MFDMs that will have to be addressed before they can be finally used practically in AO applications are discussed.