Iris AO, Inc.

The fibered pupil remapper instrument known as FIRST (Fibered Imager for Single Telescope) was recently installed on the Subaru Telescope in Mauna Kea. FIRST makes use of single-mode fibers to remove the effects of atmospheric turbulence by dividing the entrance pupil into sub-pupils that feed the fibers. The flux injection into the fibers is optimized by controlling an Iris AO PTT111 mirror (Huby et al. 2014).[2]

By inserting an Iris AO PTT111 MEMS deformable mirror-based adaptive optics system into the beam transfer optics of the 3m- C. Donald Shane Telescope at Mt. Hamilton, researchers actively controlled the wavefront of the outgoing laser guidestar beam. This uplink correction enabled correction of quasi-static aberrations, dynamic refocus of the laser guide star spot (LGS), and creation of a more compact reference beacon in the mesosphere (Norton et al. 2014).[3]

Iris AO DMs are used for wavefront correction in coronagraphs. For example, the Visible Nulling Coronagraph (VNC) at NASA Goddard is using the ultra-flat Iris AO PTT489 to demonstrate 10⁻⁹ contrast within 1-4λ/D over a 40 nm bandwidth centered at 633 nm (Hicks, et al. 2014).[4] A previous demonstration with the VNC achieved 5x10⁻⁹ contrast in narrowband polarized light (Lyon, et al. 2014).[5] This work opens the door for more technology developments aimed at imaging exoplanets with the next generation of space telescopes. Iris AO has improved the stability of its mirrors in extreme environments, as well as the accuracy of the segment controls (Aguayo et al. 2015).[6]