This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to develop an innovative micro mirror technology to address the technical problems facing the current ocular adaptive optics (AO) that include incapability to correct higher order aberrations, large cross-talk among pixels, being bulky and heavy in implementing driver electronics, and the prohibitively high cost that prevents mirror integration into commercial ophthalmic instruments such as fundus camera, confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope, and optical coherence tomography systems. This Phase I project will focus upon building a laboratory prototype to demonstrate the proof-of-concept wavefront correction of the device having an aperture size matching that of an eye pupil, performance test of the mirror for surface figures, operational speed, power consumption, reliability and stability of its material system, and to further explore critical manufacturing challenges for future monolithically integration of the mirror architecture onto a smart and low-power application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) substrate.
The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is a disruptive micro mirror technology enabling implementation of adaptive optics into commercial ophthalmic instruments by improving imaging resolution to up to one order of magnitude, reducing size and weight of the mirror module (associating interface board included) up to two orders of magnitude, thus becoming as compact as a digital camera, and by offering the eye clinical AO module to instruments manufacturers at acceptable prices. An adaptive optics system capable of enhancing retinal imaging resolution and delivering an accurate laser spot to the retina could be clinically capable of addressing several ocular diseases including retinal detachment, macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy. Other market applications of the AO mirrors include biomedical microscope, high-resolution imaging and communication through atmospheric turbulence, laser beam steering, and optical path alignment. The proposed mirror technology could be further adapted to produce a wide variety of scanning mirrors for miniature projector displays, intravascular imaging, and spectrometer market sectors.
To enable transition of the research into clinical practice for ocular adaptive optics, the overall performance of the wavefront correction device – the deformable mirror (DM), needs to be dramatically renovated with regards to a plethora of key parameters including the pixel stroke, influence function, power dissipation of the driver electronics, and the overall cost, size, and weight of the entire mirror system. An innovative deformable mirror technology is proposed to address the needs by utilizing high energy density single crystal actuators and by integrating the actuator array with an ultra-low-power ASIC-based driver electronics. Through the Phase I and Phase IB effort, we have (1) experimentally identified a few PMN-PT actuator configurations capable of tens of microns stroke for ~1-mm pixel at ~40V actuation voltage, (2) developed a bulk micromachining process to manufacture the deformable mirror part with high yield, and (3) in order to enable a compact, low-weight, and low-cost DM, Phase I also developed a novel HVA (high voltage amplifier) based driver ASIC featured with ultra-low-power dissipation. Thus, the Phase I project has established technical feasibility for each individual building block of the innovative DM, that paves the way for a more advanced Phase II development, aiming to ultimately prototype the these fundamental building blocks into an integrated chip – that is, the promised new DM with integrated ASIC driver electronics. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is a disruptive mirror technology enabling implementation of adaptive optics into commercial ophthalmic instruments by improving imaging resolution to up to one order of magnitude, reducing size and weight of the mirror module (associating interface board included) up to two orders of magnitude, thus becoming as compact as a digital camera. An adaptive optics system capable of enhancing retinal imaging resolution and delivering an accurate laser spot to the retina will help clinicians better address key ocular diseases including retinal detachment, macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy. The proposed mirror technology could be further adapted to produce a wide variety of scanning mirrors for microscopy, miniature projector displays, spectrometers, and intravascular imaging market sectors.
