Cooled bimorph adaptive mirrors for laser optics

Cooled bimorph adaptive copper and molybdenum mirrors are proposed for the compensation of large-scale optical aberrations in laser systems with an output power up to 15 kW. An investigation is reported of the characteristics of the developed and fabricated cooled bimorph mirrors. The experimental results are compared with those obtained by computer modelling. Promising designs of bimorph adaptive mirrors are proposed and discussed.