Design and analysis of a high accuracy bidirectional thermal deformable mirror

To realize an efficient, low-cost, and two-way heat-driven deformable mirror, a deformable mirror-integrated structure using a thermoelectric cooler is proposed. The bidirectional heat-driven stroke, thermal field distribution, and deformation were obtained by finite element analysis. At the same time, the error correction effect of the deformed mirror is verified by experiments: the mirror peak value is corrected from 7.087 to 0.386 μm and the root-mean-square value is corrected from 1.347 to 0.081 μm. For four special aberrations—convex divergence, concave divergence, 45-deg astigmatism, and 90-deg astigmatism—the correction error can be controlled below 5%. More importantly, the cost of the deformed mirror structure designed is under 10,000 yuan; the cost is greatly reduced compared to other deformed mirror structures.