ABSTRACT
As described in Chapter 4, an initially planar wavefront will become aberrated aer passing through a media with an inhomogeneous index of refraction. By correcting the wavefront using adaptive optics (AO), the spatial resolution and contrast of an image can be increased. Wavefront correction is accomplished by delaying the leading parts of the wavefront so that the trailing parts have a chance to catch up. As shown in Figure 8.1, if the wavefront is reected from a deformable mirror (DM), the optical path length can be varied across the mirror surface by deforming it into a shape that is conjugate to the wavefront aberration, so that the wavefront is corrected aer reection.
