Novel construction of a deformable mirror for laser beam shaping

This paper reports on a novel construction of a deformable mirror for laser beam shaping. The deformable mirror is actuated by screen-printed thick film piezoceramic unimorphs based on lead zirconate titanate (PZT). Different actuator layouts are realized and will be presented. We use Low Temperature Cofired Ceramics (LTCC) as a substrate material with a metallization as reflective surface. LTCC offers easy integration of holding structures. The reflective mirror surface is electroplated copper. After deposition, the copper layer is diamond machined to achieve excellent optical surface quality less than 10 nm (rms). We build deformable mirrors with 1, 13 and 19 actuators and a total stroke of more than 20 µm and characterize them with a wave front sensor.