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Piezoelectric Mirrors for Adaptive Optics in Space Telescopes

par Alaluf, David
Président du jury Dubois, Frank
Promoteur Preumont, André
Publication Non publié, 2016-12-02

Thèse de doctorat

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Résumé :

Future generations of space-based telescopes will require increasingly large primary reflectors, with very tight optical-quality tolerances. However, as their size grow, it becomes more and more difficult to meet the requirements, due to the manufacturing complexity and the associated costs. Chapters 2 and 3 propose two concepts of Adaptive Optics deformable mirrors, intended to be used as secondary corrector to compensate for manufacturing errors, gravity release and thermal distortion of large lightweight primary mirrors of space telescopes: (i) A scalable segmented bimorph mirror, based on independent PZT patches glued on Silicon wafers, providing a large number of degrees of freedom, a low mass while overcoming the problem of a low resonance mode; and (ii) A monolithic bimorph mirror, controlled by an array of independent electrodes, done by laser ablation on a single PZT patch. The modelling, the control strategy and the technological aspects are described. The performances of the manufactured prototypes are demonstrated experimentally. These prototypes have been developed in the framework of the ESA project, Bimorph Adaptive Large Optical Mirror Demonstrator (BIALOM). Chapter 4 introduces alternative designs, allowing to face the thermal distortion inherent to the bimorph architecture. They are compared in terms of stroke, voltage budget and first resonance frequency. These designs are required to be controlled in both directions using only positive voltages. Finally, the last chapter explores the feasibility of the shape control of a small size active thin shell reflector (with double curvature). The prototype is intended to be a technology demonstrator of a future large and very light active primary reflector. The behavior of the shell is studied through numerical simulations, and a preliminary design is proposed. This investigation is carried out in the framework of the ESA project: Multilayer Adaptive Thin Shell Reflectors (MATS).