DM/LCWFC based adaptive optics system for large aperture telescopes imaging from visible to infrared waveband

Almost all the deformable mirror (DM) based adaptive optics systems (AOSs) used on large aperture telescopes work at the infrared waveband due to the limitation of the number of actuators. To extend the imaging waveband to the visible, we propose a DM and Liquid crystal wavefront corrector (DM/LCWFC) combination AOS. The LCWFC is used to correct the high frequency aberration corresponding to the visible waveband and the aberrations of the infrared are corrected by the DM. The calculated results show that, to a 10 m telescope, DM/LCWFC AOS which contains a 1538 actuators DM and a 404 × 404 pixels LCWFC is equivalent to a DM based AOS with 4057 actuators. It indicates that the DM/LCWFC AOS is possible to work from visible to infrared for larger aperture telescopes. The simulations and laboratory experiment are performed for a 2 m telescope. The experimental results show that, after correction, near diffraction limited resolution USAF target images are obtained at the wavebands of 0.7-0.9 μm, 0.9-1.5 μm and 1.5-1.7 μm respectively. Therefore, the DM/LCWFC AOS may be used to extend imaging waveband of larger aperture telescope to the visible. It is very appropriate for the observation of spatial objects and the scientific research in astronomy.