Photonics
Knowledge Transfer Network
UK ADAPTIVE OPTICS MARKET AND
SUPPLY CHAIN STUDY
A REPORT FOR THE STFC UK ASTRONOMY TECHNOLOGY CENTRE
© Photonics KTN Geddes House • Kirkton North • Livingston • EH54 6GU T +44 1506 497228 E info@photonicsKTN.org www.photonicsKTN.org
EMES CONSULTING LTD, 2009
FOR THE PHOTONICS KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER NETWORK
UK ADAPTIVE OPTICS MARKET AND
SUPPLY CHAIN STUDY
A REPORT FOR THE STFC UK ASTRONOMY TECHNOLOGY CENTRE
EMES CONSULTING LTD, 2009
FOR THE PHOTONICS KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER NETWORK
CONTENTS
1
Executive summary................................................................................................5
2
Introduction ............................................................................................................7
3
2.1
Structure and scope of this report ...............................................................7
2.2
What is adaptive optics? ..............................................................................7
2.3
Adaptive optics technologies......................................................................8
2.3.1
Wavefront sensor .....................................................................................8
2.3.2
Wavefront modulator ...........................................................................14
2.3.3
Control system........................................................................................18
Global applications.............................................................................................20
3.1
Astronomy......................................................................................................22
3.2
Biomedical.....................................................................................................26
3.2.1
Ophthalmology......................................................................................26
3.2.2
Confocal microscopy ...........................................................................30
3.2.3
Cell analysis ............................................................................................31
3.3
Defence and security ..................................................................................32
3.3.1
Laser missile defence ............................................................................33
3.3.2
Surveillance ............................................................................................35
3.3.3
Defence communications ...................................................................36
3.3.4
Security ....................................................................................................37
3.4
Manufacturing and industrial inspection..................................................38
3.4.1
Manufacturing .......................................................................................38
3.4.2
Industrial inspection...............................................................................39
3.5
Consumer devices .......................................................................................41
3.6
Communications and sensing....................................................................42
2
4
3.6.1
Communications ...................................................................................42
3.6.2
Sensing ....................................................................................................43
UK specific.............................................................................................................44
4.1
Astronomy......................................................................................................47
4.1.1
Current activities and organisations ...................................................47
4.1.2
Near market opportunities ...................................................................51
4.1.3
Longer term market opportunities ......................................................51
4.2
Biomedical.....................................................................................................52
4.2.1
Current activities and organisations ...................................................52
4.2.2
Near market opportunities ...................................................................55
4.2.3
Longer term market opportunities ......................................................56
4.3
Defence and security ..................................................................................56
4.3.1
Current activities and organisations ...................................................56
4.3.2
Near market opportunities ...................................................................57
4.3.3
Longer term market opportunities ......................................................57
4.4
Manufacturing and industrial inspection..................................................57
4.4.1
Current activities and organisations ...................................................57
4.4.2
Near market opportunities ...................................................................58
4.4.3
Longer term market opportunities ......................................................58
4.5
Consumer devices .......................................................................................59
4.5.1
Current activities and organisations ...................................................59
4.5.2
Near market opportunities ...................................................................59
4.5.3
Longer term market opportunities ......................................................59
4.6
Communications and sensing....................................................................59
4.6.1
Current activities and organisations ...................................................59
4.6.2
Near market opportunities ...................................................................60
3
4.6.3
4.7
5
6
Longer term market opportunities ......................................................60
Other applications .......................................................................................61
4.7.1
Optical storage......................................................................................61
4.7.2
Laser scanning .......................................................................................61
4.7.3
Laser fusion .............................................................................................61
Market analysis and conclusions.......................................................................63
5.1
Astronomy......................................................................................................64
5.2
Biomedical.....................................................................................................66
5.3
Defence and security ..................................................................................67
5.4
Manufacturing and industrial inspection..................................................68
5.5
Consumer devices .......................................................................................70
5.6
Communications and sensing....................................................................71
5.7
Summary ........................................................................................................72
5.8
Conclusions for UK Photonics......................................................................73
Annex – Organisations active in adaptive optics worldwide.......................75
6.1
Academic/governmental institutions .......................................................75
6.2
Commercial organisations..........................................................................77
4
1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Adaptive optics is a technology in which optical performance is improved by
quickly manipulating the shape of a lens or mirror to correct for unwanted
disturbances (or to introduce wanted disturbances). Adaptive optics systems
generally consist of three subsystems: a wavefront sensor, to detect the state
of the wavefront; a wavefront modulator, to correct distortions in the
wavefront; and a control system to link the two.
Since the 1950s, astronomy has sought adaptive optics techniques to remove
the effects of atmospheric turbulence. More recently, enabled by increases
in computing power, similar techniques have been applied in a range of
other sectors such as ophthalmology, defence, manufacturing, consumer
devices and communications. Adaptive optics is not to be found in routine
use everywhere, however, and there are a number of reasons for this:
•
Adaptive optics systems are still relatively large. More work is needed to
reduce the size and cost of components and systems
•
The wider market lacks knowledge of the capabilities that adaptive
optics could bring
•
There is still no interchangeable plug-and-play standard which would
remove the need for every development to be a one-off
It is curious that there has been little impetus to overcome the DIY culture of
adaptive optics, and this suggests that there is still a role for some integrating
activity at a higher level, connecting academic and high-end industrial
research to new applications and users.
With a defined standard, and the easy availability of standard plug-and-play
components, exploitation of stand-alone adaptive optics technologies will
become increasingly practical, stimulating a wide range of applications that
will help to drive volumes and reduce costs.
The UK has a well-developed academic and industrial base in adaptive
optics. Of the 90 commercial organisations identified, 14 are in the UK
(second most behind US which has 45). The market sectors attracting interest
from the greatest number of companies are: Biomedical (51 worldwide, 9
UK), Astronomy (45 worldwide, 7 UK), Defence (38 worldwide, 6 UK) and
Communications (33 worldwide, 7 UK). There are two particularly promising
global market sectors, both of which the UK has the potential to exploit:
5
•
Biomedical. Adaptive optics offers a range of useful technologies for
ophthalmology and microscopy. Growing spending on healthcare in
the west to cater for the ageing population will make this an
increasingly attractive market.
•
Communications. The demand for communications services is growing
at a rate greater than the infrastructure can match. Free space optical
communications using adaptive optics may complement optical fibre
networks in the future
6
2
2.1
INTRODUCTION
STRUCTURE AND SCOPE OF THIS REPORT
This report is a market and supply chain study for the technology of adaptive
optics or ‘AO’.
The report begins in Section 2.2 by defining what we mean by adaptive
optics, in order to put later information into context.
As a market and supply chain study, this report considers both the
opportunities for exploiting the technology of adaptive optics (i.e. the market
for those interested in buying adaptive optics enabled technologies) and the
necessary components or subsystems of a successful adaptive optics system
and the organisations involved in delivering these (i.e. the supply chain).
Initially, in Section 3, we provide a broad overview of adaptive optics from a
global perspective.
Then, in Section 4, we focus on UK activities, providing some highlights of
what is going on in academia and government laboratories, as well as in
commercial organisations.
The breadth of the field and its evolving nature means that this study cannot
possibly be comprehensive. Nevertheless, we have attempted to capture the
activities of as many organisations as possible within the time available.
Section 5 presents an analysis of the global market opportunities in adaptive
optics, with some conclusions for the UK adaptive optics community based
on the findings of the study.
The report concludes with an annex (Section 6) which presents tables of
academic/governmental and commercial organisations interested in
adaptive optics on a country-by-country basis.
2.2
WHAT IS ADAPTIVE OPTICS?
In ‘classical’ optics, light rays are reflected or refracted by mirrors or lenses
with fixed surfaces. These surfaces generally have simple continuous shapes
based on spheres, but even more complex shapes are designed for specific
purposes. Thus, changing the optical performance of a system requires
moving or even replacing fixed optical objects.
It is possible to move optical devices around using actuators, and systems
using these are classified as having ‘active’ optics. This capability of
7
movement is used for correcting focus, changing magnification, etc. More
advanced than these, are systems where the optical surfaces themselves
can be modified — these are ‘adaptive optics’.
Adaptive optics systems are generally chosen for two purposes:
1. Correction of optical aberrations to improve performance
Since the 1950s, astronomy has sought adaptive optics techniques to
remove the effects of atmospheric turbulence 1 . More recently, similar
techniques have been applied in a range of other sectors such as
ophthalmology and defence.
2. Introducing optical aberrations to improve performance
Sometimes optical aberrations are deliberately introduced to exploit
some beneficial property. Adaptive optics can be used to manipulate
the shape of a laser resonator’s beam, for example, with applications
in laser material processing.
Adaptive optics was first envisioned by Horace W. Babcock as far back as
1953, but it took until the 1990s for computing power to make the technique
practical. First used on astronomical telescopes, techniques and capabilities
have continued to expand and now adaptive optics finds many diverse
applications as explored in this report.
2.3
ADAPTIVE OPTICS TECHNOLOGIES
Adaptive optics systems generally consist of three subsystems:
1. Wavefront sensor (WFS)
2. Wavefront modulator (WFM)
3. Control system
These are discussed in the sections below.
2.3.1 WAVEFRONT SENSOR
In adaptive optics, the role of the wavefront sensor is to estimate the
aberrations to which the measured wavefront has been subjected. Ideally,
A. Greenaway and J. Burnett, 2004, Technology Tracking: Industrial and Medical
Applications of Adaptive Optics, IOP Publishing
1
8
this estimate would be obtained without any a priori knowledge of the input
wavefront and would work equally well with any type of light source,
reflected or direct.
The electromagnetic field strength across the wavefront is quite complex,
and the various phase relationships need to be preserved. Unfortunately,
most detection techniques available for use with signals at optical and higher
frequencies are energy sensitive and do not preserve this phase information.
It is the relative phase across a wavefront that contains information about
both the object structure (i.e. the image) to be reconstructed and the
aberrations to which the radiation has been subjected. Wavefront sensing
techniques therefore form part of the general class of techniques for phase
reconstruction from energy (intensity) measurements, which occur in X-ray
diffraction, nuclear scattering, microscopy, aperture synthesis and optical
imaging.
The wavefront sensor generally characterises the wavefront shape through
estimation of the phase as a function of position on the wavefront. Imaging
and other non-interferometric optical methods are insensitive to overall
phase changes and the phase measured is the deviation of the test
wavefront from a plane wave. In adaptive optics these deviations are then
corrected (or at least mitigated) by a wavefront modulator which is
programmed to impose on the wavefront equal and opposite distortions,
thereby improving instrument performance.
Interestingly, wavefront sensors for use in adaptive optics systems don’t have
to be combined with algorithms that reconstruct the wavefront shape. Most
wavefront sensors can be operated so that the output (control signal) from
the wavefront sensor is null when the wavefront is a plane wave. In this case
the wavefront sensor is required to indicate where, and preferably in what
direction, the wavefront modulator should change the wavefront shape. In
this way, different types of wavefront sensor will work optimally with different
types of wavefront modulator.
In fact, wavefront sensors have many applications beyond the requirements
of adaptive optics systems. The deviation of wavefront shape from the known
shape of a probe wavefront can be used to characterise the profile of
optical components and other surfaces and to characterise the
heterogeneity of the refractive index of materials. Further, the measured
curvature and relative inclination of an input wavefront can be used to
estimate the distance (range) and the bearing (direction) of a source from
the observer. Finally, measurement of the shape of a wavefront after
9
passage through an optical system provides a powerful diagnostic on system
quality.
2.3.1.1 SHACK-HARTMANN WAVEFRONT SENSORS
The Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor is widely used with success in many
applications and is the wavefront sensor of choice in terrestrial astronomy.
This sensor works by estimating the wavefront shape by using a set of straightline segments, which are in effect planes which can be tilted in 3 dimensions)
as shown schematically in Figure 1.
Each segment characterises the slope of the wavefront over a small section.
The segment positions are defined by a lenslet array through which the
incoming wavefront is passed. This sensor is a modification of the Hartmann
mask, using the lenses to improve performance when working with faint
sources.
Figure 1: Schematic of the principle of the Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor. Each lens in an
array of lenses forms an image of a compact source. The images behind the lenslet array
should form an even grid in line with the axis of each lens (a). A distortion in the wavefront will
alter the image position (b), and this displacement is indicative of the slope of the straightline segments by which the wavefront shape is approximated.
The Shack-Hartmann sensor is photometrically efficient and, since each
lenslet can be achromatic, is suitable for broad-band operation if the
wavefront shape is colour independent. The scheme generally uses a single
spatially-resolved detector and allocates only a few pixels for the
measurement of the image formed through each lenslet. This is sufficient to
permit the centroid of each image to be determined with suitable precision.
10
The operation is usually described in terms of an integration of the twodimensional slope data in order to reconstruct the wavefront, but the sensor
can be operated as a null sensor. Used as a null sensor, a deformable mirror
in an adaptive optics system is driven to maintain the position of the image
formed through each lenslet in the appropriate (and carefully calibrated)
axial location for that lens.
If the illumination source is a compact object, such as a star, the image
centroid is well defined and easy to determine. However, if the scene
observed is extended and does not have dominant glint features or other
point-object components, the relative tilts of the images formed through
each lenslet must be evaluated from cross-correlations between the images
formed through each lenslet. The evaluation of such correlations requires
more pixels in each image and substantially more computational effort
and/or power than is required for evaluation of the centroid of the images of
compact objects.
2.3.1.2 PHASE-DIVERSITY AND CURVATURE WAVEFRONT SENSORS
A plane wavefront propagating through a homogeneous medium will focus
uniformly in one place. If the medium has variations in refractive index, then
parts of an image will focus ahead of or behind other parts. One can think of
this in terms of the average intensity —where a uniformly focused image has
brighter or darker spots in it instead of having a uniform intensity. Hence the
propagation of a wavefront can be described using an Intensity Transport
Equation (ITE). Phase diversity is usually implemented in the image plane and
compares the intensity map of images ahead of and behind that plane,
allowing the distortion of the wavefront to be inferred from the variation in
intensity.
The wavefront curvature method has been implemented using a vibrating
membrane mirror to obtain the intensity distribution on either side of the
measurement plane. Recent implementations of the phase-diversity
approach have used Diffractive Optical Elements (DOEs). This particular
implementation has the disadvantage that the use of the DOE restricts the
optical bandpass but the corrected image and the wavefront sensor data
can be delivered to a common detection plane, reducing the likelihood of
non-common-path errors. The principles of these wavefront sensors are best
explained by considering the operation in the plane of the objective lens.
11
Figure 2: Schematic of the principle of the phase-diversity wavefront sensor. Corrugations in
the wavefront in the measurement plane (centre) will alter the local intensities of the
wavefront as it propagates: a convex corrugation will cause the wavefront to converge and
hence become more intense. This change in intensity is a measure of the local wavefront
curvature and may be used to reconstruct the wavefront.
Wavefront curvature techniques are still being explored for astronomical
applications, but are proving very successful for metrology applications.
2.3.1.3 IMAGE SHARPNESS SENSORS
Image sharpness methods depend on the fact that the maximum values of
various image sharpness criteria, such as the integral of the square of the
image intensity, reach a global maximum value if the optical system
producing the image is diffraction limited. An adaptive optics system can be
constructed by optimising these sharpness measures using a multi-dither or
hill-climbing approach. The iterative and sequential nature of the
optimisation means that this approach is generally viable only for systems with
relatively few actuators. Thus this method has found widespread application
in the optimisation of laser beam delivery, where the sharpest image can be
sought using simple deformable mirrors with a few control elements.
The method also has the distinct advantage that it does not require the use
of flux from the test wavefront for the wavefront sensing operation, but can
use the directly-detected image data if that is read sufficiently rapidly. A
further advantage is that, because it uses the image data, there is no
possibility of non-common path errors between the optical path through the
wavefront sensor and that through the imaging system – a feature that can
be usefully exploited in combination with other wavefront sensors.
12
2.3.1.4 WAVEFRONT SENSING IN METROLOGY
As mentioned earlier, wavefront sensing can also be used as an enabling
technology in metrology:
•
•
•
•
•
•
in optical metrology for determination of surface shape (using a
reflected beam)
measurement of heterogeneity in transparent materials
measurement of the thickness and parallelism of transparent laminate
structures
determination of distance through measurement of wavefront
curvature (note, here, that sensitivity is a quadratic function of
distance, so good accuracy is achievable only at short range)
measurement of the properties of individual optical components and
complete optical assemblies
validation of the performance of optical signal processing filters.
2.3.1.5 WAVEFRONT SENSING IN MICROSCOPY
As may be expected, there are a number of roles for adaptive optics to play
in microscopy, where the control of optical aberrations is critical to improving
image resolution. A more exacting application occurs when considering two,
or multi-photon techniques, and confocal techniques. In the former,
fluorescence is stimulated by the addition of energy from multiple photons
whose individual energy is otherwise insufficient to provoke this. This is a useful
mechanism where higher energy photons would otherwise be damaging to
the tissue under investigation. In the latter case, both the field of view of a
specimen and the illumination source are tightly limited by a pinhole so that
out-of-focus information is greatly reduced. With scanning, this spot can then
reconstruct 3D information to some degree.
In both of these techniques, the light is of course also passing through a
specimen, which will introduce aberrations. There is therefore a role for
adaptive optics here in both measuring these aberrations, and in some
systems pre-distorting the illumination sources such that the aberrations
through the specimen are nullified. A further refinement of this is delivered by
coherence gated wavefront sensing (CGWS). The simplest way of measuring
the optical characteristics of a specimen is to use bright illumination and
fluorescence, but this has the effect of bleaching the fluorophors added to
the specimen, and also of course possibly damaging the specimen itself. In
CGWS, there is no dependence on fluorescence; instead backscattered light
is largely rejected by a coherence gate such that only light that has been
scattered very near to the focus is retained. This means that the information
13
necessary to calculate the wavefront correction parameters can be
gathered at much lower light intensities; the method then also works with
samples which are completely non-fluorescent.
2.3.2 WAVEFRONT MODULATOR
Wavefronts can be modified, or ‘modulated’, by reflective or transmissive
techniques, typically using deformable mirrors or liquid crystal (LC) lenses.
Reflective techniques are conceptually simpler, arguably better developed
for end-user applications, and most commonly found in high power handling
systems – such as laser machining applications – and systems with
requirements for high fidelity such as astronomy. Transmissive systems using
LCD cells are less advanced from a market perspective, and suffer losses –
including from polarisation sensitivity – but allow for completely different
capabilities, such as 3D volumetric display.
2.3.2.1 REFLECTIVE TECHNOLOGIES
Reflective, or ‘mirror’ surfaces may be made
adaptable by segmenting them into smaller
sections that can be separately adjusted for
tip, tilt and piston. Segmented mirrors have
been produced with over 1000 actuators,
but a few hundred is more common (see
Figure 3). Alternatively, the mirror surface or
may be continuous – known as a
‘facesheet’- that is thin enough to be
deformed by actuators. In a typical
application, a thin glass facesheet mirror will
be deformed by the action of piezoelectric
actuators. A smaller sized deformable mirror
can be made by an arrangement of thin
layers of piezoelectric material, and
membrane mirrors can be made using the
principle of electrostatic distortion of a thin
metallic membrane.
Figure 3: Segmented mirror used in
the Common-User Adaptive Optics
Facility at the William Herschel
Telescope of the Isaac Newton
Group 2
NAOMI – Nasmyth Adaptive Optics for Multi-Purpose Instrumentation – is a joint project of
the Isaac Newton Group, the STFC UK Astronomical Technology Centre and the University of
Durham
2
14
These mirrors typically range from a few centimetres to a few tens of
centimetres in diameter, but much larger systems are often deployed in
active mirror control.
The largest application area for segmented mirrors has followed from the
development of micro mirrors manufactured using Micro-Electro-Mechanical
Systems (MEMS) technology. The mirror is made using techniques developed
from silicon chip production technology where micro-electro-mechanical
actuators are produced on a silicon wafer using photo-lithography and
etching processes. Owing to the small size and close packing of the
components, this technology has the potential of producing mirrors with
thousands of actuators at relatively low cost, and this is the technology found
in, for example, the Texas Instruments DLP chips used in projection displays.
On a larger scale, there is interest in developing deformable mirrors of several
metres in size for the next generation of large astronomical telescopes.
The choice of substrate for such a mirror is an important one. Current
research into large adaptive mirror technology has focused on conventional
materials, such as glass or nickel coated aluminium. Both of these have their
limitations owing to their relatively high mass and in the case of glass its
susceptibility to brittle fracture. Carbon fibre composite materials offer a
potentially disruptive improvement, with lower mass, high stiffness and
thermal stability, but there are still problems to be overcome in producing an
acceptable surface finish.
The utility of adaptive optics extends far beyond the specific case of
correcting for atmospheric turbulence. Deformable mirror technology can be
used to produce lightweight optical systems with high imaging performance.
This has applications in space and aviation systems, where mass is a major
cost driver. For example, though the operational environment of a
spacecraft is relatively benign, mechanically speaking, the launch trauma is
significant; the steps taken to mitigate this in the design of the optics and
structure add significant mass to the system. A deformable mirror has not only
the potential of being lighter, but by being able to correct in orbit for thermal
distortions and alignment errors, can achieve a much higher imaging
performance whilst relaxing the satellite design constraints, hence reducing
overall cost. Again, carbon fibre materials have advantages for such mirror
systems.
15
2.3.2.2 TRANSMISSIVE TECHNOLOGIES
As a fundamental optical component, the applications of a lens are of
course virtually limitless, but a particular attraction of a ‘solid state’ variable
lens is its potential for lightness and reliability. A compound lens system which
could zoom and focus without any moving parts would be ideal for a
lightweight, compact, reliable camera for many applications including
CCTV, consumer products, and machine vision. Also, in intelligent imaging
systems where software agents are used to interpret images, or aid an
operator in doing so, a range of adaptations enabled by an adaptable lens
system could be built into the image analysis algorithms.
A number of techniques have been explored for making adaptable lenses,
including piezoelectric, acousto-optic techniques and even water-filled
systems. Liquid crystal phase devices have, however, proved to be the most
promising type of solid state technology because of the relatively large
changes of refractive index that are achievable for low voltages. There are a
variety of ways of producing a switchable liquid crystal lens, and these
enable lenses to be made outside of the typical spherical optics. In short, the
effective refractive index of a liquid crystal can be varied by applying an
electric field, as we see in display applications. So the first thought for making
a lens would be to echo the pixellated layout and have individual control
over the electric field in each. Another method uses patterned holed
electrodes whereby fringing fields are used to define the phase profile over a
small hole in the liquid crystal electrode. This is a simple approach to lens
construction, but it can only be used to produce micro-lenses (approximately
tens of microns in diameter). The combination of a liquid crystal layer with a
fixed lens allows the construction of lenses with small f-ratios; the lens
construction and liquid crystal alignment is not trivial, however. It is also
possible to make liquid crystal Fresnel lenses, but these have very short focal
lengths along with the usual problems of multiple foci and poor off-axis
performance.
A ‘modal addressing’ technique has been developed by the University of
Durham, with the key advantage that the liquid crystal can be controlled
without pixels over a large area, and therefore a low order phase structure
can be produced very simply and easily.
A liquid crystal lens is like a conventional liquid crystal cell, but with only one
‘pixel’. The key difference is that one of the electrodes has a very high
resistance (~MΩ/square). As shown in Figure 4(a) it consists of a thin liquid
crystal layer (~20µm) placed between glass plates which are coated with
16
electrodes. The electrical analogue of this circuit, as shown in Figure 4(c), is
similar to a transmission line, or an array or RC filters. If a voltage is applied to
each then the voltage in the centre of the cell will be less than the supply
voltages at the edges. By carefully controlling the electrical parameters, a
voltage and hence phase profile can be produced which is lens-like. The
precise shape of the lens depends on the cell parameters, and the
amplitude, frequency and spectral content of the applied voltages.
Figure 4: Design of a modal liquid crystal lens. (a) shows the cell cross-section construction
(not to scale). A thin film of liquid crystal material is sandwiched between 2 glass plates.
Transparent electrodes allow an electric field to be applied across the cell. The light would
be transmitted through the cell from top to bottom. (b) shows a plan view of a circular lens.
(c) shows the electrical analogue of the cell. The capacitance, c, and (small) conductance,
g, is formed by the liquid crystal layer, and the resistance, ρ, is formed by the top high
resistance electrode.
LC lenses produced in this way are currently 5mm in diameter and have focal
lengths varying from infinity down to about 50cm. Interestingly; lenses with
astigmatism and spherical aberration can be produced (for aberration
correction). The major disadvantage of this type of lens is its relative
17
weakness, and there is current work investigating methods for increasing the
optical power.
Figure 5: Example interferograms obtained using a modally addressed liquid crystal lens. The
focal length is increasing from left to right. Typically, a liquid crystal lens power varies from 0
to 2 dioptres.
2.3.3 CONTROL SYSTEM
Connecting the parts of any active or adaptive optics system will be a
control system, usually operating in a closed-loop way to achieve the
necessary correction. In the most straightforward cases, the type of
wavefront sensor is congruent to the wavefront modulation methodology:
hence a Shack-Hartmann sensor’s individual poles are mapped to discrete
actuators on a one-to-one basis, and the motion of the actuator is
determined by a fixed algorithm. These systems can work very well with DSP
or FPGA approaches, and can be fast, though speed of correction is always
a factor determining the ultimate performance of the system. For
atmospheric correction, it is the closed-loop bandwidth of system which
determines the wavelengths at which the system is useful: 10Hz, for example,
for near infrared. With shortening observed wavelength, the closed-loop
bandwidth required increases steeply.
Factors which affect the speed at which corrections can be computed are
integration time, actuator performance, transfer function complexity and
computational horsepower.
The read-out rate of the wavefront sensor will be limited by the number of
pixels that need to be shifted, and their sensitivity to the incoming light. In
fainter light the integration time will increase, hence reducing the read-out
cycle. The number of pixels will have an effect, especially in detectors which
are read out serially. The processing algorithm will have to take as much
account as possible of the behaviour of a given actuator for a given input.
The less accurately the actuator behaves, the more cycles of correction will
be needed to complete the correction. Along with the physical performance
18
of the actuator (in terms of speed) it will therefore also be limited by any nonlinearities or hysteresis.
The trend of continually increasing computational horsepower at any given
price point is very helpful in increasing the potential performance of adaptive
optics systems, and also in widening their potential application space (as
more cost-sensitive applications become viable).
Of course not all systems are closed-loop in nature, and are not necessarily
fast: the other extreme would be cases such as thermal compensation. In
these cases, the control problem is not so directly challenging, but the lack of
much in the way of standards or ‘plug-and-play’ devices does mean that
each new application will need some degree of customisation.
19
3
GLOBAL APPLICATIONS
There are at least 90 companies active in exploiting adaptive optics
technologies worldwide 3 . The geographic distribution of these companies is
shown in Figure 6. Each company has been classified as one of three types:
•
Small, niche adaptive optics component suppliers (turnover < £7.5m)
•
Medium-sized adaptive optics systems suppliers (£7.5m < turnover <
£37.5m)
•
Large companies that have some adaptive optics capability (turnover
> £37.5m)
Most of the interesting information on applications and market trends come
from the medium-sized adaptive optics system suppliers. These companies
also give the best available indication of the likely size of adaptive optics
markets (since revenues attributable to adaptive optics for large companies
are difficult to obtain).
50
45
Number of companies
40
35
30
L
25
M
S
20
15
10
5
0
Australia
France
Germany
Israel
Italy
Japan
Netherlands
Russia
Switzerland
UK
US
Figure 6: Number of companies active in adaptive optics by country
(S = small, turnover <£7.5m, M = medium, turnover <£37.5m, L = large)
Estimating the total size of the market for adaptive optics products is
problematic, since most of the organisations (and all of the very large ones)
3
www.adaptiveoptics.org and various other sources
20
involved in adaptive optics receive only a small proportion of their income
from adaptive optics focused business.
The global application of adaptive optics can generally be grouped under
the following headings:
1. Astronomy. Adaptive optics is being used to correct for atmospheric
distortion.
2. Biomedical – Ophthalmology and Microscopy. Adaptive optics is being
used to correct eyewear, and for improved results of laser eye surgery.
Adaptive optics is used to improve microscope performance by
correcting for aberrations introduced by tissue. The ability for certain
wavelengths of light to penetrate skin to some degree can exploited to
perform optical coherence tomography, and there are companies
exploring adaptive optics techniques for delivering optical coherence
tomography machines that will be effective at discovering skin
cancers.
3. Defence and Security. Adaptive optics is being explored as a method
for improving the effectiveness of directed energy weapons, and for
retinal scanning, and there is a strong interest in finding ways to apply
atmospheric correction horizontally, to improve long distance
surveillance capability, target identification, etc.
4. Manufacturing and Industrial Inspection. Adaptive optics is used for
welding, laser micromachining, etc. Adaptive optics is also being used
for metrology. An emerging field is the use of holographic ‘tweezers’ to
manipulate nano-scale particles. Though not yet a routine technique
of commercial value, significant improvements in the usability of such
systems through the work of groups such as those at Glasgow University
and the University of Bristol are making such systems much more
practical.
5. Consumer devices. Adaptive optics is used to improve the quality of a
displayed image for devices that incorporate digital cameras, and is a
fundamental part of CD and DVD players, and likely to prove critical in
new higher-density optical storage media.
6. Communications. Adaptive optics is being used to improve the transfer
of data using free space optics.
Other uses of adaptive optics that don’t fit under the headings above are
also considered.
21
A summary of the academic and commercial organisations active in
adaptive optics is included in the Annex in Section 6. For the commercial
organisations, application areas of specific interest are identified using the six
industry sectors above.
60
Number of companies
50
40
30
L
M
S
20
10
0
Astronomy
Biomedical
Defence / Security Manufacturing /
Industrial
Inspection
Consumer Devices Communications
Figure 7: Number of global companies by size with interests in different sectors
(S = small, turnover <£7.5m, M = medium, turnover <£37.5m, L = large)
Note that ‘Laser’ and ‘Imaging’ have not been included as application areas
since they cut across the industry categories used above. Laser applications,
for example, feature in astronomy (adaptive optics for laser guide-stars),
biomedical (adaptive optics for refractive eye surgery), defence and security
(airborne laser), manufacturing and industrial inspection (laser
machining/welding), consumer devices (use of lasers for adaptive optics in 3D optical data storage) and communications (free space optical
communications).
3.1
ASTRONOMY
For the basic functioning of a telescope, simple, predictable distortions – such
as ‘sag’ caused by gravity as a large mirror’s orientation is changed – can be
solved by using active optics techniques; more complex distortions, such as
those caused by temperature gradients across the system call for adaptive
optics. For large ground-based telescopes, and possibly for future space
telescopes, any opportunity to relax the mechanical design constraints by
the use of adaptive optics is likely to lead to significant mass savings. For
22
different reasons, both of these applications benefit greatly from reduced
mass. There is therefore an opportunity to save cost for delivering optics of a
given size, or to increase the available aperture for a given budget. In both
cases, the increased complexity is also a factor, but as the benefit is
significant this is usually an acceptable cost. For certain space applications
the availability of such techniques may be enabling. For example, certain
space missions may have such exacting mass constraints that there is no way
of meeting them without using these advanced techniques. One such
mission under consideration is ‘Solar Orbiter’, and individual instrument
budgets for this are a matter of a few kg, owing to the capability of the
launchers available. The velocity imparted to the spacecraft is known as the
‘velocity increment’, or ∂v, and the implied energy that would get a 12,000kg
payload to low Earth orbit, would only achieve 125kg to direct solar orbit.
Along with the capability of the launcher to impart the right ∂v for a given
payload, the need for increasingly large apertures is also limited by the
dimensions of the launcher’s payload bay. This implies the need for
segmented optical systems, which will require lightweight approaches as well
as correct and accurate positioning of the mirror segments. Adaptive optics
will play a part in all aspects of such optical systems, from metrology of the
segments in manufacture, to control during deployment and operations.
For ground based observatories, almost all new 8m or larger diameter
telescopes will incorporate adaptive optics, and systems are being retrofitted
to many smaller instruments. Examples of adaptive optics systems in regular
use for astronomical research include the two 10m Keck telescopes in Hawaii,
the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and the Calar Alto Telescopes in
Andalucía, Spain. A large amount of information on the adaptive optics
employed by the Keck telescopes (and proposed upgrades) is available on
the Keck website 4 .
Though largely associated with professional astronomy, products for the
amateur astronomy market are already available, such as the AO-7 system
from SBIG 5 . These are primarily aimed at the stabilization of faint images,
though it might be expected that as the cost of computing power continues
to fall, this market could expand both in reach and performance.
4
www2.keck.hawaii.edu/optics/ao/
5
www.sbig.com
23
French company ALPAO offers a
continuous membrane mirror
deformed using voice-coil actuators
as shown in mirror Figure 8 and Figure
9. Here a set of magnets is attached
to a continuous membrane in front of
solenoids, and displacement is
directly proportional to the currents
applied.
Figure 8: ALPAO Low-speed deformable
mirror 6
This approach yields typical linearity errors below 3%. Moreover, as forces do
not depend on material properties, mirrors work in a large range of
environmental conditions and a high stroke can be achieved (up to 25
mechanical µm), as the membrane is not attached to the actuators. Various
coatings can be deposited on the membrane. Standard products come with
silver protected coating ensuring 95% power reflection from 500nm to 2.5µm.
The stroke and optical quality of this solution makes it suitable for atmospheric
correction on large telescopes.
Figure 9: Variation in deformable mirror
surface 7
ALPAO are also exploring a new
architecture for closed-loop adaptive
optics systems, using modular software
and hardware. The company is using an
open architecture approach to allowed
end users to easily integrate their own
hardware and algorithms using high level
tools such as Matlab, IDL or sciLab.
Another French company, CILAS, has
provided equipment for the COME-ON,
NAOS and VLT projects of the European
Southern Observatory (ESO), for the
GEMINI telescope in the United States,
and for the SUBARU telescope in Japan.
6
www.alpao.fr/technology.html
7
Image courtesy of Alpao, www.alpao.fr/technology.html
24
Excerpt from Keck press release 7th October 2003
Adaptive optics is a technique that has revolutionized ground-based astronomy
through its ability to remove the blurring of starlight caused by the earth’s
atmosphere. Its requirement of a relatively bright “guide star” in the same field of view
as the scientific object of study has generally limited the use of AO to about one
percent of the objects in the sky.
To overcome this restriction, in 1994 the W.M. Keck Observatory began working with
Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL) to develop an artificial guide star system. By
using a laser to create a “virtual star,” astronomers can study any object in the vicinity
of much fainter (up to 19th magnitude) objects with adaptive optics and reduce its
dependence on bright, naturally occurring guide stars. Doing so will increase sky
coverage for the Keck adaptive optics system from an estimated one percent of all
objects in the sky, to more than 80 percent.
“This new capability of using a laser guide star with a large telescope has invited
astronomers to start exploring the night sky in a much more comprehensive manner,”
said Adam Contos, optics engineer at the W.M. Keck Observatory.“In the future, I
ld
t
t
j
b
t i t b i t lli
i il
t
t t k
Figure 10: Keck observatory, Hawaii 8
8 Image courtesy Tom Connell, Wildlife Art/Weldon-Owen, Inc.
25
Figure 11: Comparison of images of Io with and without adaptive optics and image from
Galileo orbiter. Upper Left: Io image taken with Keck adaptive optics; K-band, 2.2micron.
Upper Right: Io image based on visible light taken with Galileo spacecraft orbiter. Lower Left:
Io image taken with Keck adaptive optics; L-band, 3.5micron. Lower Right: Io image taken
without Keck adaptive optics.
3.2
BIOMEDICAL
Adaptive optics has a number of biomedical applications, including eyerelated issues where the problems of imaging the retina through the vitreous
humour are directly analogous to astronomical imaging through the
atmosphere, and for which similar corrections can be made. Metrological
applications of adaptive optics are also very relevant to the eye, and the
class-leading laser-vision correction surgical techniques use wavefrontsensing techniques to guide the surgeon. Aside from imaging and metrology
applications, application of adaptive optics techniques is enabling the
effective use of optical coherence tomography for examination of subsurface tissue for cancer.
3.2.1 OPHTHALMOLOGY
Many companies now sell commercial wavefront sensors for assessing a
patient’s vision. Sometimes this extends to performing customised laser eye
surgery. The market is particularly well developed in the US, unsurprisingly
26
since the US expenditure on healthcare accounts for over 43% of the world
market 9 . The world-wide market for autorefractors is approximately 6000.
Figure 12: Total Expenditure on Health, 2006
3.2.1.1 VISION ASSESSMENT
Many companies such as Abbot Medical Optics, Alcon, Bausch and Lomb,
Carl Zeiss Meditec, Nidek and Wavefront Sciences sell wavefront sensors for
assessing vision before and after laser eye surgery. Some of these have been
approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for controlling the laser
surgery itself. This enables higher-order aberrations in the eye to be detected
and corrected than could be achieved with conventional technology.
9
World Health Organisation statistics, 2006
27
Figure 13: Abbott Medical Optics Wavescan Wavefront System 10
3.2.1.2 ADAPTIVE OPTICS EYEWEAR
Adaptive Eyecare Ltd in the UK has designed water-filled lenses that can be
tuned by the wearer. 10000 pairs of these glasses have been made in China
and distributed to people that need them in Africa.
Figure 14: Adaptive Eyecare Glasses
3.2.1.3 RETINAL IMAGING
As with viewing through the atmosphere, retinal imaging is limited in
resolution and contrast by the imperfections in the cornea and crystalline
lens, as well as by the viscous and heterogeneous nature of the vitreous
humour in the eye. The limits on resolution that these effects place on
imaging through the eye render important cellular structures invisible.
Adaptive optics can be used to improve the resolution of retinal images to
reveal individual photoreceptors. Research is being carried out by City
University and Optos plc to develop an adaptive optics scanning laser
10
Image courtesy of Abbott Medical Optics
28
ophthalmoscope 11 , and Kestrel Corporation in the US has developed an
Adaptive Optics Fundus Imager 12 . Imagine Eyes is also developing a
commercial retinal camera using adaptive optics technologies 13 .
Adaptive optics off
Adaptive optics on
Figure 15: Results from City University adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope
Other improvements are promised by US-based MEMX, Inc., a spin-off from
Sandia National Laboratories’ MEMS programme, which is developing lowcost MEMS deformable mirrors that may deliver an order of magnitude
improvement in retinal imaging capability. MEMX estimated in 2004 that the
market for these wavefront correctors could be $20m per year.
3.2.1.4 CORNEA ASSESSMENT
Kestrel corporation has developed a donor cornea characterisation system
which uses wavefront sensing to identify corneas that have been modified by
refractive surgery. This is useful because such corneas are unsuitable for
transplant because they are structurally weak and may collapse during
surgery. Without this system (which could be automated), surgeons must rely
on patients’ records and visual assessment.
11
www.city.ac.uk/optometry/research/laboratories/visor/visorprojects/Adaptive%20Optics%20
SLO.html
12
www.kestrelcorp.com/capabilities/Biomedical%20Eng/aofi.html
13
www.adaptiveoptics.org/News_0207_1.html
29
3.2.1.5 OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY
Professor Wolfgang Drexler of the School of Optometry and Vision Sciences,
Cardiff University, and his team have used Spectral Domain Optical
Coherence Tomography (SD-OCT), enhanced with Imagine Eyes’ patented
adaptive optics technology, to develop new clinical imaging techniques
dedicated to improving early detection and treatment options for retinal
pathologies. The team has unveiled some of the first ever, high-definition, 3dimensional images of the retinal microstructures of a living human eye.
These images were produced without any damage or discomfort to the
subjects that participated in the study. Michelson Diagnostics is a UK start-up
company with a novel multi-beam approach to OCT.
3.2.2 CONFOCAL MICROSCOPY
Conventional microscopes illuminate a specimen uniformly through its depth.
Confocal microscopes instead focus the light beam into a tight spot that is
raster-scanned through the specimen. By imaging through an aperture with a
size matched to the resolution of the imaging system, the single point imaged
at each scan position is clearly defined in both position and depth. Since
shifting the focus of the illumination system relative to the data collection
system leads to a significant loss of signal through the aperture, confocal
microscopy yields high resolution in all three axes. This approach is especially
effective for imaging turbid media, in which scattering from other depths
lead to very confused images using conventional microscopes. A threedimensional scan can be completed quickly enough to capture objects that
are slowly moving or changing.
Adaptive optics is used in confocal microscopy to maintain precisely the
focus of both the beam delivery and the data collection systems during
scanning. Wavefront sensing techniques can also be used to check the focal
depths, scan the beam and compensate for aberrations within the
specimen.
3.2.2.1 ADAPTIVE SCANNING OPTICAL MICROSCOPE
A problem encountered in wide-field microscopy and all high-power
microscopes is the need to image larger samples at higher magnifications,
when higher magnification traditionally restricts microscopic field of view.
Existing solutions to this problem include the fast-scanning microscope stage
and the fast-scanning lens. Fast-scanning stages serve to move different
regions of the sample under the objective in an attempt to obtain snap shots
30
that can be stitched together to form a complete image. Often, however,
the moving mechanics themselves introduce new image aberrations. The
fast-scanning lens, on the other hand, does not rely on a moving stage, yet
traditionally requires expensive and complex optics to overcome inherent
image blurring caused by off-axis lens aberrations. As an alternative to these
solutions, Dr. Benjamin Potsaid's team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
created the Adaptive Scanning Optical Microscope, which uses fastscanning lens technology coupled with an economical mini-deformable
mirror to compensate for off-axis aberrations.
Figure 16: Adaptive Scanning Optical Microscope (Thorlabs ASM9600) 14
The effect is the ability to correct aberrations caused by optical imperfections
but at a greatly reduced cost when compared to a typical high-powered,
wide field-of-view scanning microscopes. The ASOM (shown in Figure 16) has
been licensed by Thorlabs and is commercially available.
3.2.3 CELL ANALYSIS
Quantitative Phase Imaging (QPI) is a novel imaging technology in which the
phase or wavefront information in light is captured, thereby adding shape
and form to an image and enabling otherwise invisible objects to be imaged.
It is the world's first digital phase/wavefront technique allowing for the
capture of high resolution digital wavefront images.
Iatia Vision Sciences in Australia has developed an algorithm for QPI that
enables extraction of phase information from incoherent, polychromatic
radiation without needing special optical components. Two conventional
14
Image courtesy of Thorlabs, Inc.
31
bright field images taken at slightly different focal planes are needed to
recover phase information. The algorithm returns phase and intensity
information independently, and provides quantitative, absolute phase (with
DC offset). It works with non-uniform and partially coherent illumination, offers
relaxed beam conditioning, and solves the twin image problem of
holography.
In 2004, GE Healthcare incorporated QPI into its IN Cell 1000 cell analyzer, an
automated cell imager providing high-throughput image analysis for use in
basic research, assay development and drug discovery applications. The use
of QPI in the IN Cell 1000 allows phase contrast images to be generated
without needing to incorporate costly and cumbersome optical systems. It
also allows bright field data to be captured simultaneously with phase
contrast images without needing to change optical configurations and slow
down throughput. A further benefit is that segmentation for automated postcapture analysis is improved by using pure phase (optical thickness) data.
Figure 17: GE Healthcare’s IN Cell 1000 15
3.3
DEFENCE AND SECURITY
A number of adaptive optics organisations have their roots in the US Air Force
Research Laboratory (US-AFRL) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. These include
AMO Wavefront Sciences, which has developed a wavefront sensor for
ophthalmic applications, Baker Associates, which specialises in deformable
mirror technology, and Kestrel, which has worked on phase-diversity
wavefront sensors with QinetiQ.
Some companies have developed adaptive display technologies with
applications that include defence. For example, Germany company Holoeye
supplies LCOS micro-displays for Head Mounted Displays (HMD) and Heads
15
Image courtesy of Iatia Vision Sciences
32
Up Display (HUD), with applications in automotive, aerospace, and defence
sectors.
There are, however, three main defence applications that employ adaptive
optics:
•
Laser missile defence
•
Surveillance
•
Defence communications
There are also security applications such as using adaptive optics for access
control through iris recognition technology. These are described in turn
below.
3.3.1 LASER MISSILE DEFENCE
Adaptive optics is incorporated in both ground-based and airborne missile
defence systems, which focus laser beam energy on incoming missiles.
Adaptive optics can also be used to compensate for thermal blooming, in
which a high-power beam transmitted through the atmosphere is caused to
deviate upwind due to the cooler, higher density air on the upwind side of
the beam.
There is a significant amount of literature in particular on the US Airborne Laser
(ABL) programme. Under development for long-range missile defence (the
laser has an effective range of over 100 miles), ABL consists of a modified
Boeing 747-400F aircraft with a megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser
(COIL) emitting a 1.315-micron beam.
The ABL is intended to detect and track missiles near their launch site, then
aim and fire the laser beam to destroy them. The laser contains six modules,
each the size of a large car. A 3m turret mounted on the aircraft nose
contains a 1.5m telescope, and aims the laser so the pilot doesn’t have to
turn the plane to fire at a missile.
33
Figure 18: Boeing 747 with airborne laser 16
The ABL depends on adaptive optics techniques for more than one aspect of
successful operations, which proceed as follows. Firstly, six infrared sensors
detect the exhaust plume of a missile. Then, a kilowatt-class laser system is
used to track the missile. During this phase, a second kilowatt-class laser
measures disturbances in the atmosphere. This is then fed to a further
adaptive optics system to compensate for atmospheric tilt and phase
distortions, using a deformable mirror containing 341 actuators and a closedloop bandwidth of about 1 kHz. Finally, the ABL directs the COIL’s megawatt
beam onto a pressurised area of the missile and holds it there for three to five
seconds, until the missile breaks apart.
16
Image courtesy of Boeing, www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/abl/index.html
34
Press Release: Boeing Airborne Laser Team Begins Weapon System Flight Tests
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., April 24, 2009 -- The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA],
industry teammates and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency have begun Airborne Laser
(ABL) flight tests with the entire weapon system integrated aboard the ABL aircraft.
ABL, a heavily modified Boeing 747-400F aircraft, completed its functional check flight
April 21 from Edwards Air Force Base with the beam control/fire control system and
the high-energy laser onboard, confirming the aircraft is airworthy, ready for more
airborne tests, and on track for its missile-intercept demonstration this year.
"With ABL's return to flight, we are on the verge of fully demonstrating the
unprecedented speed, mobility, precision and lethality that ABL could provide to
America's warfighters," said Michael Rinn, Boeing vice president and ABL program
director.
ABL would deter potential adversaries and provide speed-of-light capability to
destroy all classes of ballistic missiles in their boost phase of flight. Eliminating missiles in
their boost phase would reduce the number of shots required by other elements of
the layered ballistic missile defense system. ABL also has the potential to be employed
for other missions, including destroying aircraft and surface-to-air missiles.
The program has logged many accomplishments over the past several years. In 2007,
ABL completed almost 50 flight tests that demonstrated its ability to track an airborne
target, measure and compensate for atmospheric conditions, and deliver a surrogate
high-energy laser beam on the target. In 2008, the team completed installing the
high-energy laser onboard the aircraft and, for the first time, operated the entire
weapon system at high power levels.
Boeing is the prime contractor and overall systems integrator for ABL, and provides
the modified aircraft and battle management system. Northrop Grumman supplies
th hi h
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3.3.2 SURVEILLANCE
Adaptive optics has been used for space-object imaging at the US Air Force
base at Maui, Hawaii, for two decades. Other surveillance applications have
received less attention, but discussions of target identification and tracking
have been published. The ranges here are generally much shorter than for
the ABL, but it is often undesirable to use laser illumination. Instead, passive
observation in the infrared is generally employed, where adaptive optics can
play a role in compensating for atmospheric turbulence.
Where laser illumination is used, for example for burst illumination in the near
infrared, adaptive optics can be exploited to control divergence of the
35
illumination probe. The likelihood of laser interrogation being detected can
be minimised by using adaptive optics to concentrate the beam onto a very
small target area.
Iatia's Quantitative Phase Imaging technology provides passive and covert
depth imaging for defence and homeland security applications for the
Australian Department of Defence, including:
•
Passive ranging. By utilising available light or heat signatures, Iatia's
technology is able to generate target ranging information passively
and covertly without the expense and power requirements of active
systems such as lasers.
•
Shape detection (camouflage negation). QPI is capable of detecting
the shape of camouflaged objects independent of their colour or
brightness contrast.
Figure 19: Quantitative Phase Imaging for camouflage negation 17
3.3.3 DEFENCE COMMUNICATIONS
Modern warfare requires secure, reliable, high-capacity communications
networks. A main objective for deployed forces is a communication system
that permits on-the-move, over- the-horizon, sharing of data throughout the
chain of command. These networks must also be able to provide efficient
communications for both manned and unmanned airborne and groundbased systems. The objective is to provide a strategic and tactical network
linking airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets, tasking,
processing, exploitation and dissemination centres and ground-based force
elements.
17
Image courtesy of Iatia Vision Sciences
36
To meet projected future military requirements, Free-Space Optical
Communications (FSOC) and RF systems in higher frequency bands will need
to be employed to alleviate bandwidth bottlenecks. AOptix Defense
Lasercom uses adaptive optics in FSOC to seamlessly extend static fibre-optic
networks to include airborne sensors, command platforms and deployed
tactical units, offering 40 Gbps data rates over a distance of 150km 18 .
Figure 20: AOptix LCT-5 Lasercom Terminal 19
3.3.4 SECURITY
AOptix Iris Biometrics has developed a technology which uses adaptive
optics for automated iris imaging. Operating at a nominal stand-off distance
of 2m, the InSight™ adaptive optics system uses multi-stage, real time, closed
loop control to automatically find the subject within a very large capture
zone, avoiding rigid subject positioning requirements of conventional systems.
Using a powerful microprocessor, InSight finds and tracks a subject’s eye in
real time, enabling automation of enrolment or recognition processes. The
value of adaptive optics is that it provides 3D localisation information from a
2D sensor, so the system “knows” where the subject’s eye is located
anywhere within the large capture volume during the entire process. As a
result, the iris images are always centred and focused, improving accuracy.
Applications include border and airport security, issuing of ID cards, office
access control and law enforcement.
18
http://www.aoptix.com/defense_lasercom.html
19
Images courtesy of AOptix Technologies, Inc.
37
3.4
MANUFACTURING AND INDUSTRIAL INSPECTION
3.4.1 MANUFACTURING
Laser percussion drilling is a precision manufacturing technique in which small
holes are drilled in a material using laser beams. For example, BAE Systems is
interested in using laser percussion drilling to perforate aerofoils with holes of
high regularity and good quality, since porous aerofoils may reduce
consumption of aviation fuel by up to 10%. Aircraft turbine blades could be
machined in the same way to reduce turbulence and so increase turbine
efficiency. The quality of holes is highly sensitive to the laser beam quality,
and intracavity adaptive optics could be exploited to measure and control
the quality of laser pulses, ensuring the holes produced are of the optimum
size and shape. Intracavity adaptive optics can control both the length of a
laser pulse and the distribution of energy within it. This is of particular value for
femtosecond laser pulses, which can be used for delicate laser materials
processing. By removing material in an ablative process, this provided a
much finer finish than the melt-ejection processes typical of laser percussion
drilling. Femtosecond lasers could be important for machining surgical
instruments and prosthetic joints, since form and texture are thought to be
important for extending their lifetime. Finally, these very short pulse lasers are
set to form a key manufacturing capability for photovoltaic cell massproduction, where the reduced sub-surface damage that they leave is
critical for cutting and splicing actions.
Laser hole drilling, perforation, ablation and surface texturing are amongst
the laser materials processing applications of Swiss microlens array
manufacturer SUSS MicroOptics.
Adaptive optics has a role to play in annealing, welding, engraving, forming,
cutting and other laser-based manufacturing processes, since beam quality
and focus are vital for obtaining good results. By controlling the beam focus
with extracavity adaptive optics, the beam can be delivered over a larger
area and the need to reposition the workpiece is reduced; this increases the
speed and accuracy of the process.
It is sometimes possible that material removed by the laser re-attaches to the
workpiece. This would normally require the workpiece to be rescanned with a
low intensity beam. A better approach using adaptive optics would be to
create a beam shape with a central sharp peak to perform the drilling and a
lower intensity ‘skirt’ to prevent re-attachment of ejected material. Adaptive
38
optics can also be used to ensure the beam quality is maintained when an
industrial laser is transmitted over long distances.
In rapid manufacturing, continuously adjustable focusing optics can be used
for laser-assisted direct metal deposition (DMD™) processes. Adaptive mirror
arrangements and beam movement enables variable deposition width and
geometry. This allows increased deposition rate while maintaining
dimensional tolerances. The focusing optics and method are adapted under
closed-loop feedback, so complicated features can be fabricated with
close tolerance stress and microstructure control to improve lead-time and
design flexibility.
Used by BMW for automotive manufacturing, scanner welding technology
developed by German company TRUMPF employs adaptive optics by
guiding a laser beam using mobile mirrors. This makes welding in series
production faster, more accurate, and more cost-effective than traditional
welding processes. By incorporating an additional lens system, the focus point
can also be offset dynamically, allowing three-dimensional components to
be processed completely without moving either the processing head or the
part. The high speed of translation movements means that downtime is nearly
eliminated, with the laser working during nearly 100% of the available
fabrication time. Scanner optics can also be guided over the workpiece
during welding, with movements synchronised with a robot in real time. The
use of a robot significantly increases the workspace, permitting true threedimensional part processing.
The value of adaptive optics in Europe is recognised in the Photonics21
organisations’ Work Group 2: “Industrial Production / Manufacturing and
Quality”. Photonics21 is a stakeholder group with industrial, academic and
governmental participation across 49 countries.
3.4.2 INDUSTRIAL INSPECTION
Wavefront sensors are a viable alternative to interferometric techniques
usually used for optical metrology – i.e. measurements of distance, direction,
surface shape and media-induced wavefront distortions.
A range of commercial products for wavefront-sensing based metrology is
available from French company Imagine Optic (Figure 21), offering
wavefront (as seen by the sensor) measurement accuracies of λ/100 to
λ/1000 for visible wavelengths.
39
HASO 3 FIRST ShackHartmann Wavefront Sensor
HASO HP-26 Shack-Hartmann
Wavefront Sensor
HASO X-EUV Shack-Hartmann
Wavefront Sensor
Figure 21: Imagine Optic Shack-Hartmann Wavefront Sensors
In 2005, Imagine Optic introduced the world's first X-EUV wavefront sensor in
response to customer demand in synchrotron metrology and
nanolithography, and in 2007 they released a new version of their award
winning HASO sensor line and adaptive optics software package. They have
also developed a sensor for x-ray and extreme ultraviolet metrology.
Phasics manufactures high resolution wavefront sensors (SID4) based on new,
patented technology – 4 wave lateral shearing interferometry. The effects of
SID4 are shown in Figure 22. This offers good design features for laser
characterisation and optical metrology: sensitivity, high resolution and
dynamic range measurement. Phasics adaptive optics systems promise to
optimise beam focusing and beam shaping in real time. Their OASys product
line includes the SID4 wave front sensor, a deformable mirror and the
software to drive both the analyser and the deformable mirror. The OASys
software is dedicated to control the wavefront modulator and is linked to the
SID4 main interface software.
Intensity
Phase
Usual wavefront sensor
Intensity
Phase
Phasics wavefront sensor
40
Figure 22: Effect of Phasics SID4 wavefront sensor 20
Phasics also offer technology for measuring lens quality. Their Kaleo system
simultaneously measures aberrations, focal length, point spread function and
modulation transfer function for spherical and aspherical optics. This allows
characterisation of highly opened optics (up to f/1.6) without a relay lens.
3.5
CONSUMER DEVICES
‘Consumer devices’ represents a new sector for the application of adaptive
optics, and a potentially exciting one given the seemingly insatiable appetite
amongst the public for electronic gadgets. So far, application of adaptive
optics in this sector has been limited, probably because size and cost are key
differentiators in this market. One company that has entered this sector is
Varioptic, producing liquid lenses based on the electrowetting phenomenon
for camera phones and other consumer and business devices.
In electrowetting (see Figure 23), a drop of water is deposited on a metal
substrate covered by a thin insulating layer. A voltage is then applied to the
substrate, changing the contact angle of the water drop. The liquid lens uses
two liquids of the same density – one insulator and one conductor. A change
to the applied voltage changes the curvature of the liquid-liquid interface,
thereby modifying the lens’ focal length.
Figure 23: Varioptic lenses based on electrowetting 21
The key advantages of this technology are:
20
Images courtesy of Phasics, http://www.phasics.com
21
Image courtesy of Varioptic
41
•
Large inverse focal length range
•
Ruggedness (no moving parts)
•
Fast response
•
Good optical quality
•
Good transparency in the visible range
•
Wide operating temperature range
•
Good stability of the optical axis
•
Low power consumption
•
Cheap construction
Over the last few years, camera phones have revolutionised the mobile
phone market, with cameras developing from nice-to-have features, to musthave features for most market segments. More than half of all mobile phones
sold in 2006 came with an embedded camera, and camera phone sales
could hit the 1 billion mark by 2010 22 .
Mobile phone handset manufacturers have recognised that there is an
opportunity not only to serve the changing demands of mobile phone
customers, but in doing so to capture part of the market for low end digital
still cameras. For this to be possible, mobile phone handsets need to offer a
similar level of image quality to that promised by low end dedicated
cameras. This is difficult to achieve using conventional technology, since the
space available in mobile phone handsets is very limited compared to that in
dedicated cameras, which makes the liquid lens technology develop by
Varioptic particularly promising.
3.6
COMMUNICATIONS AND SENSING
3.6.1 COMMUNICATIONS
Free-space optical communications (FSOC) technology is of interest in
several areas, ranging from military communications (see Section 3.3.3) to
rapid deployment of high-bandwidth commercial communications links over
short distances, such as for live external broadcasting. Free-space optics
systems are particularly valuable where laying of fibre-optic cables would be
22
www.varioptic.com/banner/varioptic-liquid-lens-in-camera-phones.php
42
difficult, but in most urban environments, physical constraints, absorbent
surfaces and heated or air-conditioned buildings can reduce beam quality
over even quite short distances. Adaptive optics helps by focusing the beam
tightly onto a small area detector, and by correcting for atmospheric
turbulence, atmospherically-induced beam spread/wander, and speckle
effects. Adaptive optics cannot correct for scattering caused by fog and
aerosols, however, which limit the useful range of FSOC.
AOptix Commercial Lasercom offers an adaptive optics-based system for the
point to point transmission of data, with significant benefits over RF links. These
include an order of magnitude higher bandwidth with the capability of 10
Gbps over distances of 5 km. One of the first applications for this technology
will be for the wireless transmission of high-definition film and video production
on remote location shoots. This approach can simplify deployment, reduce
set-up time, lower power requirements and reduce hardware costs. It also
offers new options in wireless network configurations that would have been
too slow and costly before.
3.6.2 SENSING
Adaptive optics can correct for effects of atmospheric turbulence in imaging
applications, such as sports photography, wildlife and other long-distance
photography, imaging in furnaces and reactor vessels, underwater imaging
and aerial imagery. It is hard to imagine any one of these applications
promising a large enough market on its own to justify the necessary
investment to develop a compact, robust adaptive optics system for a price
that the market will bear. If low cost technology were developed for highend consumer cameras, however, this market sector may develop as a spinoff.
43
4
UK SPECIFIC
The number of UK companies interested in adaptive optics is shown in Figure
24. The distribution of companies by application sector is strikingly similar to
that for the global picture shown in Figure 7. It seems reasonable to assert,
therefore, that the UK supply chain for adaptive optics is fairly similar to the US
supply chain (which dominates global activity since it has by far the largest
number of companies interested in adaptive optics).
10
9
Number of companies
8
7
6
5
L
4
M
S
3
2
1
0
Astronomy
Biomedical
Defence / Security Manufacturing /
Industrial
Inspection
Consumer Devices Communications
Figure 24: Number of UK companies by size with interests in different sectors
(S = small, turnover <£7.5m, M = medium, turnover <£37.5m, L = large)
As we have explained in Section 3 above, adaptive optics has many roles it
can play beyond its classical origins in professional astronomy. Significant
steps towards the move from big-budget programmes in defence and
astronomy have been made, owing in part to the reduction in cost of
computing and sensing devices, and also to the growth of the use of lasers in
manufacturing processes, where they are not just a new type of cutting or
welding machine, but also offer new capabilities for fabrication that are
changing the way that things are designed. Other growth areas include
surveillance and medical diagnostics, but adaptive optics is not to be found
in routine use everywhere, and there are a number of reasons for this.
Firstly, systems are still relatively large. More work is needed to reduce the size
and cost of components and systems. Secondly, there is still a question of
44
getting the knowledge of the capabilities that adaptive optics could bring to
the wider market.
Finally, though attempts at toolkits for adaptive optics have been made in
the past, and have led to some very cost-effective unit parts, there is still no
interchangeable plug-and-play standard which would remove the need for
every development to be a one-off. Critical to this will be the development of
standardised interfaces and a protocol that enables different components to
work together. It is curious that there has been little impetus to overcome the
DIY culture of adaptive optics, and this suggests that there is still a role for
some integrating activity at a higher level, connecting academic and highend industrial research to new applications and users.
With a defined standard, and the easy availability of standard plug-and-play
components, exploitation of stand-alone adaptive optics technologies will
become increasingly practical. Some existing applications already make use
of a single adaptive optics element of course, beam shaping or metrology for
instance, but the emergence of plug-and-play components with standard
inputs and outputs will stimulate a wider range of applications that will help to
drive volumes and reduce costs.
For wavefront sensors, there is interesting activity at Nottingham University
making an on-chip integrated wavefront sensor using their capabilities with
custom chip fabrication. This sort of device will be decisively useful in
reducing the size and cost of wavefront sensors. The same goes for work at
Heriot-Watt University, where they are exploring other low-cost techniques for
phase-diversity/wavefront-curvature sensors.
45
Figure 25: Texas Instruments DLP
For wavefront modulators, there are promising developments in low-cost
membrane mirrors and MEMS devices. These last are proliferating as the
technology of choice for projector devices, with the Texas Instruments DLP
(shown in Figure 25) being the most famous device. The main technology for
transmissive wavefront modulation is still the liquid crystal cell, but there are
still issues with achieving significant optical power in these as the aperture
increases, and their polarising effect may be problematic in some
applications.
Although strictly speaking some adaptive optics components are easily
purchased off-the-shelf, production volumes are still small, and hence the
price and supply are respectively too high and too unreliable. Another byproduct of this tends to be relatively poor documentation, and as with other
applications for COTS products in high reliability systems, this is a barrier to
uptake.
A degree of translation is required for the methods and abilities and
applications techniques for adaptive optics components, and they need to
be as routinely available as any other section in a generic optical
components catalogue.
The following sections present some details about the companies and
institutions researched for this report. Where practical they are separated by
46
domains, though some of their capabilities may have multiple applications.
The list is not exhaustive.
4.1
ASTRONOMY
4.1.1 CURRENT ACTIVITIES AND ORGANISATIONS
4.1.1.1 COMMERCIAL
Andor
Andor are based in Northern Ireland, and are a spin-out from Queen’s
University Belfast. The company was set up in 1989 with the mission of
producing scientific cameras, and they have particular IP in very low light
and high sensitivity devices. These can be useful for wavefront sensing, where
a very high readout rate can mean that even in bright light, the number of
photons in each readout frame may be small.
Figure 26: Andor iXon camera
Their ultra fast iXon DV860-BV EMCCD camera has been applied as the
wavefront sensor in a new optical system for profiling of atmospheric
turbulence strength with altitude, based on low-light level stellar wavefront
sensing. The detector has a peak quantum efficiency of 92 percent at
550nm, and a maximum EM gain of 1000 times which yields an effective RMS
read noise of <0.1 electron. Frame rates of up to 500Hz (full frame 128 x 128
pixels with no binning) are possible. Typically frame rates of approximately
200Hz are used for slope detection and ranging (SLODAR, a method for
assessing atmospheric turbulence), with exposure times of 1-2 ms.
The system comprises a Shack-Hartmann
wave-front sensor mounted on a Meade
47
40cm Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. The
WFS is made up of a collimating lens, a
lenslet array, and a short pass filter (550nm
cut-off), in a compact tube mounting
attached directly to the EMCCD head. This
system was commissioned by the
European Southern Observatory (ESO) and
constructed by the Centre for Advanced
Instrumentation (CfAI) at the University of
Durham, UK. It is currently installed at the
ESO observatory at Cerro Paranal in Chile
(Figure 27). The camera, operated through
Linux, performs optimally in relation to low
light level wavefront sensing in astronomy.
Figure 27: Atmospheric Measurements
at the ESO observatory at Cerro
Paranal, Chile
The advent of small electron-multiplying CCDs is potentially very useful for
adaptive optics applications, but standard desktop PCs are still short of the
sort of computational horsepower that is needed, and Andor is also working
on DSP solutions for the image processing.
Figure 28: Andor Newton camera
BAE SYSTEMS
BAE Systems have interests in many areas which could benefit from adaptive
optics, including laser and imaging systems. In many of these applications
even small improvements can lead to meaningful size, energy and cost
savings. BAE Systems are actively engaged in developing all aspects of
practical adaptive optics systems, and a particular interest at their Advanced
Technology Centre in Great Baddow is in deformable mirrors and their control
systems. One design has a gold coated mirror approximately 90 mm in
48
diameter which can be reshaped up to 1000 times every second in order to
correct for very fast movement of the atmosphere.
e2v
With a history dating back to 1947, e2v is as world-leading sensor
development company, with interests in aerospace & defence. e2v sensor
technology includes products for military surveillance, targeting and
guidance, space-based imaging and astronomy, radar, electronic warfare,
and broadband data converters and microprocessors for aerospace
applications.
e2v’s L3 CCD (‘Low Light Level’) camera is a Queen’s award winning device
with imaging sensors so sensitive that they can detect individual photons
even when running at high speed. e2v routinely provides image sensors for
the most demanding applications in space, astronomy and scientific
imaging; as well as medical, industrial machine vision, security and
professional broadcast, cinematography and digital still camera markets.
Observatory Sciences
Observatory Sciences was founded in 1998 by a number of scientists formerly
at the Royal Greenwich observatory. They are an independent specialist
developer and supplier of hardware and software for the control of
telescopes and other complex applications.
Observatory Sciences have worked on a number of adaptive optics systems
around the world.
Starpoint
Starpoint Adaptive Optics is a small company formed specifically to exploit
the wide range of commercial opportunities emerging for adaptive optics
technologies. The company offers low-cost, solution-level adaptive optics
products and design services to the optical systems industry and to the
applied optics research community.
Starpoint's key products are Quicksilver, an all-in-one board-level adaptive
optics system, and AmpArray[32]™, a 32-channel HV amplifier for driving
adaptive mirrors, and the AmpArrayLV™, a 37-channel deformable mirror
drive intended for continuous facesheet mirrors with very high actuator
capacitance.
4.1.1.2 ACADEMIC/GOVERNMENTAL
49
STFC UK Astronomy Technology Centre
The UK Astronomy Technology Centre is funded by the Science and
Technology Facilities Council, and is located at the Royal Observatory in
Edinburgh. The facility is the UK’s centre for large astronomy projects and has
significant capabilities for project management and technology integration.
Durham
Now associated with the university’s Centre for Advanced Instrumentation,
the work at Durham spans the full range of academic interests in this domain.
Their work is very much rooted in astronomical applications, and currently
includes:
•
Multi-conjugate adaptive optics
•
Laser guide stars
•
Very high-order systems (that is, systems with very large numbers of
actuators)
•
SLODAR
•
Liquid crystal lenses
Applications for the liquid crystal lenses for astronomy are largely in the
domain of simulation of atmospheric turbulence.
Nottingham
The applied optics group at the Department of Electrical and Engineering ,
Nottingham University are mainly concerned at the integration level with
optics, ultrasonics electronics and lasers, and mainly in applications such as
medicine and materials, however their work on an integrated wavefront
sensor is very applicable to astronomy. This project integrates a ShackHartmann sensor and the processing onto a single chip. This has advantages
for size, and also processing throughput and communications bandwidth as
the majority of the functional processing takes place on board the sensor
chip.
Imperial
The applied photonics group is mainly active in non-astronomical adaptive
optics domains such as ophthalmology. The group’s interest in low-cost
adaptive optics is very relevant to the amateur and small observatory
markets, and they have undertaken projects in these areas.
50
University College London
Part of UCL’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, the Optical Science
Laboratory has heritage in working on astronomical applications. This group
undertakes work in deformable mirrors including novel materials, and novel
approaches such as the embedding of fibre-Bragg gratings into deformable
elements such that the strain measurement can be used to calculate
deformations.
4.1.2 NEAR MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
Opportunities for development in professional astronomy amount to:
producing instrumentation for existing telescopes, limited then by the various
nations’ budgets; and equipping new generations of telescopes. Telescope
programmes under consideration at the moment include an ‘Extremely Large
Telescope’ for ESO, the European Southern Observatory, and a 4m aperture
Solar Observatory for the NSF in the USA.
4.1.3 LONGER TERM MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
The following areas are of significant interest:
Wavefront Sensors
Smaller and cheaper sensors will facilitate entry and growth in the smaller
observatory market, and ultimately the market for amateur astronomers;
more sensitive detectors (which can be read out faster) will allow faster
closed-loop correction, and this will make adaptive optics effective at
progressively smaller wavelengths.
Wavefront Modulators
Continuous facesheet mirrors of increasing size will need more actuators, and
will have exponentially more computationally intensive control systems. The
business cases for extremely large telescopes in Europe and US are
dependent on the use of adaptive optics as their apertures extend beyond
the sensible limit for even the best atmospheric ‘seeing’.
Lighter materials for optics
51
These will probably be new materials such as carbon fibre, and will enable
deployment of large mirrors in other applications, such as volumetric display.
For spacecraft use, the use of adaptive optics systems to allow relaxation of
specifications for thermal and mechanical design will lead to significant
overall mass savings. Larger space telescopes are required for earth
observation (note, there is not a role for adaptive optics in atmospheric
correction through the atmosphere in reverse), and for remote sensing using
LiDAR.
4.2
BIOMEDICAL
4.2.1 CURRENT ACTIVITIES AND ORGANISATIONS
4.2.1.1 COMMERCIAL
Adaptive Eyecare
Adaptive Eyecare was founded by Joshua Silver, Professor of Physics at
University of Oxford, with the specific aim of bringing improved vision to
people in the third world. Their product seems orthogonal to traditional
adaptive optics, nevertheless as a transmissive device in which fluid pressure
is altered to provide a change in optical behaviour for the correction of
aberrations elsewhere in the optical chain (i.e. the eye) then this is certainly
an adaptive optics product. The company is aiming to manufacture a billion
products, and is working with the University’s Centre for Vision in the
Developing World.
Figure 29: Joshua Silver (left) demonstrating two versions of his company’s liquid filled eyewear
52
Davin Optronics
Davin Optronics is a components and systems supplier, and provide primarily
eye inspection systems. Other bespoke system designs are carried out inhouse.
e2v
Alongside e2v's broad range of standard and custom CCD imaging devices,
their L3Vision EMCCD sensors and cameras offer an extended capability in
very low light imaging. The image signal is amplified on the chip while still in
the charge domain. This allows the sensor to operate in real time with subelectron equivalent readout noise, enabling very dim sources to be imaged.
Performance can be further extended by the use of shielded anti-blooming,
which maintains full well capacity for the pixels and high quantum efficiency
whilst minimising leakage from cell to cell from strong light sources in the
object being imaged. This makes their cameras particularly suitable for
integration into adaptive optics systems designed for the detection of
fluorescent and luminescent markers in life sciences.
Epigem
Epigem manufactures customised replica microlens arrays for a wide variety
of optical and opto-electronic applications.
Michelson Diagnostics
Michelson Diagnostics has developed a novel high-resolution imaging
technology using multi-beam Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) that
provides a breakthrough in imaging performance. Multi-Beam OCT is able to
produce images of the sub-surface detail in soft and hard biological tissue,
silicon and some plastics and ceramics, in real time, and at microscopic
resolution (better than 10 μm).
The machines produced by Michelson Diagnostics are simple to set up, and
are small – ultimately hand-held. Being able to examine sub-surface detail in
this way will be particularly helpful in the early detection (and hence
treatment) of skin cancers.
Optos PLC
Optos is a leading medical technology company that designs and
manufactures retinal imaging devices. The company exploits adaptive optics
to improve the diagnostic capability and resolution of retinal images, and
provides machines around the world for opticians to use for screening and
53
record-keeping purposes. As mentioned earlier in this report, the capability
for adaptive optics to improve observations through the vitreous humour
means that, along with the health of the eye itself, it is also possible to make
direct observations of the impact and effectiveness of emerging
pharmaceutical therapies for the leading causes of blindness and certain,
major systemic diseases, including diabetes, vascular and neurological
disorders.
QinetiQ
Arden and QinetiQ are working to develop commercial products based on
the Image Multiplex (IMP) diffraction grating, designed at QinetiQ as a
phase-diversity wavefront sensor for atmospheric adaptive optics systems.
Arden sells an IMP-based wavefront sensor, the AWS-50, for metrology
applications.
QinetiQ is also working with Kestrel Corp in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to
medical imaging systems based on the IMP grating. This system measures
corneas that have been reserved for transplantation before the surgical
procedure takes place.
Thorlabs
Thorlabs makes an Adaptive Scanning Optical Microscope which exploits
adaptive optics technology to provide the world’s first optical imaging
microscope that avoids the trade-off between field of view (FOV) and image
resolution. By combining a large-area fast steering mirror, a large-aperture
scan lens, and a 32 kHz deformable mirror, their microscope is capable of
imaging a 1250 mm2 field of view while providing a uniform resolution of 1.5
μm throughout the entire viewing area.
4.2.1.2 ACADEMIC/GOVERNMENTAL
Cardiff University
The school of optometry at Cardiff University have interests in wavefront
sensing in the eye, and are also leading players in the application of Optical
Coherence Tomography.
City University
City University are a leading group in the UK for wavefront sensing in the eye,
and have shown that adaptive optics makes a decisive contribution to the
54
improvement in resolution that is possible especially in eyes with significant
defects.
University of Durham
The University of Durham has interests in the application of adaptive optics to
microscopy, and particularly to wide-field imaging.
Heriot-Watt University
Allied to their work applying adaptive optics to pulse shaping in femtosecond
lasers, Heriot-Watt are also using this for 2D and 3D microscopy applications.
Imperial College
Imperial College’s interests in this domain include optical tomography, tear
film topography and ophthalmology.
Institute of Photonics (University of Strathclyde)
The IOP interests include application of adaptive optics techniques to highresolution microscopy, and have worked on a technique where the
wavefront distortions are not directly measured, but instead the image itself is
used as a basis for the improvement algorithm applied via a membrane
mirror. The group have also been investigating the applicability of adaptive
optics to coherent anti-stokes Raman scattering microscopy (CARS).
University of Oxford
The university of Oxford have worked with the Institute of Photonics (above) in
the areas of image based algorithms and techniques to improve microscope
performance, and are also working on techniques for 3D microscopy and the
use of light for cell stimulation and initiation of chemical reactions.
4.2.2 NEAR MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
There is a growing public interest in, and understanding of the value of retinal
examination and record keeping for diagnosis of eye and other ailments for
which the eye is a good indicator. Local opticians are already offering retinal
photographs, and further extension of the quality of these through adaptive
optics enhanced systems such as those on offer from Optos will give a
competitive edge.
55
Another area of strong growth is Optical Coherence Tomography. The
publishers of BioOptics World report the current global market as worth
$200M, with annual growth rate of 34%. This field is seen as ‘recession-proof’,
and set to top $800M by 2012. The technique is popular because the
hardware is now becoming very cost-effective compared with the value of
the diagnosis – and concomitant treatment savings.
4.2.3 LONGER TERM MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
The ageing population will increase demand for medical care. One
application of interest for adaptive optics is increased demand for corrective
laser surgery. The worldwide market for refractive surgery was estimated to
exceed £2B in 2008 23 . By 2020 over 1 billion people will be aged 60 or over
(currently over 700m).
4.3
DEFENCE AND SECURITY
4.3.1 CURRENT ACTIVITIES AND ORGANISATIONS
4.3.1.1 COMMERCIAL
Andor
Defence is a major market for Andor, whose cameras are suitable for high
resolution through the atmosphere, potentially working well with adaptive
optics for correction.
BAE SYSTEMS
As per the description in the astronomy section, BAE Systems research and
deployment spans a number of activities in adaptive optics space,
particularly aiming at improving performance. For laser systems the interests
are in beam forming and control, especially for directed energy weapons.
For imaging there is of course an interest in correction of atmospheric
aberrations, and this has many applications in surveillance, remote sensing
and target identification.
QinetiQ
23
Ophthalmology Times - September 15, 2006, cited at Lasik Surgery News,
www.lasiksurgerynews.com/news/eye-vision-statistics.shtml
56
QinetiQ is a large company working in core markets of defence and security,
and they execute a very wide range of research and technology
development. Relevant to adaptive optics, these include MEMS design and
fabrication capabilities, and novel sensor development capabilities. As well
as developing underpinning technology, QinetiQ has customers with interests
in complex remote sensing applications where adaptive optics techniques
are enabling new capability. These include large area optical searching and
tracking multiple targets, lightweight optics for remote sensing and
surveillance.
4.3.1.2 ACADEMIC/GOVERNMENTAL
None
4.3.2 NEAR MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
The UK has a very large and still growing CCTV market, with 450,000 cameras
shipped in 2008. This is a very price sensitive market, but the cameras require
skill to install and there is an opportunity for adaptive optics devices to de-skill
installation and hence save costs in deployment.
4.3.3 LONGER TERM MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
The hot topics for defence and security are about long-range imaging. While
there are still open questions about the limits of what can be achieved for
correction through the horizontal atmosphere, a lot of potential exists for
improved imaging at distance, and hence face, or target recognition. A
further key interest is in adding 3-D contextual data to thermal and low-light
imaging. Note that these markets also share an interest in larger lightweight
optics with the astronomy market.
4.4
MANUFACTURING AND INDUSTRIAL INSPECTION
4.4.1 CURRENT ACTIVITIES AND ORGANISATIONS
4.4.1.1 COMMERCIAL
Arden
Arden supply curvature wavefront sensors for measurement and profiling of
lasers.
Optisense
57
OptiSense have developed a compact adaptive optics control system for
general use.
Thorlabs
Thorlabs supply a number of adaptive optics related components, including
a development toolkit for end user experimentation.
4.4.1.2 ACADEMIC/GOVERNMENTAL
STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the Rutherford
Appleton Laboratory is conducting experiments in materials research using
adaptive optics.
4.4.2 NEAR MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
The laser cutting and welding market is generally supplied by high-power
lasers fabricated in China and elsewhere. Developments in the use of
adaptive optics for beam forming will upscale the capabilities of lower-power
lasers and this presents an opportunity for lower cost systems. The University of
Strathclyde has demonstrated a low-cost system capable of improving
brightness by a factor of 10. A growth area of great potential for the UK is the
‘speciality laser’, particularly ultra-fast lasers which are sought for cutting and
scribing silicon wafers. With these lasers the very short pulses reduce the subsurface damage, and they are seen as a critical technology for scaling up
the manufacture of photovoltaic cells.
4.4.3 LONGER TERM MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
Longer term, increased interest in machine vision for manufacturing presents
an opportunity for adaptive optics. This is especially true in automated
processes with parts moving in 3-dimensional space where control of optical
aberrations is critical.
There may also be opportunities in the fabrication of 3-dimensional electronic
devices where elements are structured into different layers. This requires the
capability to image or print though a substrate with well-controlled
magnification and optical qualities, and with no optical distortion. Wavefront
sensing techniques could also provide automatic inspection of 3D circuits.
Modern wavefront-based metrology techniques are becoming increasingly
robust to scintillation and other problems and could offer a cost-effective
58
mechanism for monitoring the alignment of parts prior to, say, welding and
for monitoring the quality of welds in real time.
4.5
CONSUMER DEVICES
4.5.1 CURRENT ACTIVITIES AND ORGANISATIONS
None
4.5.2 NEAR MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
None
4.5.3 LONGER TERM MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
Digital still cameras and mobile phones with cameras may benefit from smallscale, cheap adaptive optics technologies, such as those developed by
Varioptic. In the absence of an established UK R&D or manufacturing base
for such technologies, however, it is hard to see any developments in this
sector for at least a few years.
4.6
COMMUNICATIONS AND SENSING
4.6.1 CURRENT ACTIVITIES AND ORGANISATIONS
4.6.1.1 COMMERCIAL
Epigem
Epigem is a leading company in polymer-based micro-engineering, and has
design and fabrication capabilities in micro-optics.
CIP
Formed from the former BT Research labs, CIP has foundry capability and is
very active in micro-optics communications device research.
QinetiQ
QinetiQ are extensively involved in detector development across a number
of methodologies and application areas. For the communications industry
their unique (in the UK) MEMS fabrication capability may prove decisively
useful.
Cablefree
59
Cablefree is a UK SME with extensive experience at delivering free space
optical links, and have worked with Starpoint and the Universities of
Strathclyde and Durham in the application of adaptive optics to improve
performance and reliability of links over increasing distances.
4.6.1.2 ACADEMIC/GOVERNMENTAL
University of Strathclyde
Through the Institute of Photonics, the University of Strathclyde is continuing
with developments of the application of adaptive optics to free-space
optical communications, and is currently working on a follow-up project to
ALFONSO, using funding from the European Framework programme.
4.6.2 NEAR MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
As elsewhere in the world, the UK is seeing increasing pressure on digital
services, and the sorts of symmetrical bandwidths being sought can only be
supplied by optical techniques. The challenges will be to get the optical
components’ system-level costs to be comparable to the equivalent
electronic systems: the gap is currently about a factor of 10. There is therefore
a rich opportunity for emerging technologies to play a part in components
for switching and coupling and in laser beam forming for fibre-optic systems.
There is also a role for improvement in the deployment of free-space optical
links which will be a part of rolling out the new infrastructure.
4.6.3 LONGER TERM MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
A good candidate for solving switching problems would be a Reflective
Spatial Light Modulator (RSLM), built using MEMS mirrors. This would enable alloptical switching in an optical router: switching beams of light between fibres
using miniature mirrors. MEMS devices like this will also be applicable to FSO
beam-forming.
Practical devices will need to provide large numbers of pixels and at a > 90%
fill-factor (typically 1 million addressable mirrors, modulated at a rate
>100kHz). Supporting the traffic to control the MEMS spatial light modulator
would then exceed 100Gbit/s, implying the need for innovations in the
accompanying electronics systems also.
60
In a sensing industry estimated to be worth £25 billion per annum 24 , the
general list of performance improvements, aside from size and cost, are:
spectral, spatial and temporal resolution, sensitivity, and width of spectral
coverage. Thus, along with improving existing capabilities, new interests will
start to be met such as the desire to be able to use remote sensing to detect
‘intent’, so, in a crowd of people for example, you might care to be alerted
to any people noticeably hotter than others.
4.7
OTHER APPLICATIONS
4.7.1 OPTICAL STORAGE
Along with the increasing use of digital media for high-definition content, the
call for reliable storage and distribution media is increasing. The challenge, as
everywhere, is to come up with reliable techniques that are easy to
implement and cheap. For optical storage, holographic techniques are
functional but not easily applied to manufacturing techniques. Imperial
College London is working on a non-holographic multiplexing technique
which makes pressable discs with potentially 1TB capacity, about 4 times the
density of Blu-ray. The college has patented IP in this through Imperial College
Innovations Ltd.
4.7.2 LASER SCANNING
In large flat-bed scanners as used in the printing industry, it is important that
the resolution is the same across the whole scanning area. UK optical
specialist Davin Optronics is looking into using extracavity adaptive optics to
adjust the focus of the beam to maintain the same spot size and shape
across a scanned area. This can be achieved without adaptive optics, since
a direct feedback to monitor the focus condition can be calculated in
advance, but using a wavefront sensor enables focus to be monitored and
adjusted quickly to correct for small variations in system geometry.
4.7.3 LASER FUSION
Adaptive optics may have a role to play in laser fusion, the process of using a
very high power laser to generate a brief thermonuclear reaction. Whilst the
number of projects employing such high power (~ trillion watt) lasers is very
small (two of note are the National Ignition Facility at the US Lawrence
24
Sensors Knowledge Transfer Network
61
Livermore National Laboratory, and HiPER, a proposed European High Power
Energy Research facility), the budget for each project will be large and the
potential role for adaptive optics is significant (such as beam shaping, beam
quality and focus monitoring).
62
5
MARKET ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS
Adaptive optics is not a clearly defined market sector. It is the name of an
approach to improving optical performance using a closed-loop feedback
system; its potential applications therefore span almost the entire photonics
sector.
The world market for photonics components was estimated to be £214B in
2006 (and growing at 13% per annum), and the market for products enabled
by photonics was a further £146B (growing at 16% per annum) 25 .
70
60
Revenues(£B)
50
40
30
20
10
0
Optical lens and
Optical fibre
Optical storage
laser
communications
Optical I/ O
devices
Flat panel
displays
Optical
components
Solid state
lighting
Figure 30: Market for photonics components, 2006 (OIDA, 2006)
Market opportunities for adaptive optics fall into three broad categories:
1. The ability to improve optical performance at a reasonable price
2. The ability to maintain optical performance and reduce price
significantly
Lebby, M., 2007, “OIDA’s grand challenges in optoelectronics and the future of the industry
for the Emerging Technologies Workshop”, Grasmere, UK
25
63
3. The ability to maintain optical performance at a reasonable price,
whilst adding other benefits (such as reduced size, improved reliability,
etc.)
Performance
In fact, adaptive optics may pave the way for ‘disruptive innovations’, that
introduce novel benefits (or much lower cost) whilst reducing optical
performance slightly in the short term as shown in Figure 31. The expectation
here is that future technology developments will enable performance to
catch up with or surpass the incumbent technology 26 .
Pace of
technologic
al progress
Sustaining
innovations
Performanc
e that
average
customer
can utilise
Disruptive
innovations
Time
Figure 31: Disruptive innovations may compromise performance in the short term whilst
introducing other beneficial features (or lower cost)
So far, most adaptive optics applications have provided the first of these
benefits. It could be argued that in order for adaptive optics to succeed in
mass-market applications such as consumer devices, advances in the
second or third categories will be necessary.
We will now consider the attractiveness of the different application areas
presented in Sections 3 and 4 for the application of adaptive optics.
Note that ‘Astronomy’ and ‘Biomedical’ sectors are much more specialist
than the other categories. This means that the sector sizes presented in the
summary tables below are much smaller, but that the share of the market
that is relevant to adaptive optics is much higher than for other sectors.
5.1
ASTRONOMY
Astronomy, whilst clearly benefitting enormously from adaptive optics,
cannot be considered a market with significant growth potential since
26
Christensen, Clayton M. (2003), The innovator's dilemma, New York, HarperCollins
64
volumes for large systems are low. For amateur astronomers there may be
some cross-over of technologies between the astronomy and consumer
devices sectors. The potential for using some form of adaptive optics to
improve further the quality of images captured by handheld digital cameras,
for example, is an exciting prospect.
The total world consumer market for telescopes, binoculars and related
accessories is estimated to be around $200m 27 or £136m. At present, the use
of adaptive optics in consumer markets is very limited, though. Adaptive
optics is much more common for large telescopes. For extremely large
telescopes such as Keck, and the proposed European Extremely Large
Telescope, Giant Magellan Telescope, and Thirty Meter Telescope, inclusion
of adaptive optics is almost a certainty. It is difficult to obtain a precise figure
for the total value of the adaptive optics systems on large telescopes, but the
proposed Next Generation Adaptive Optics for Keck is budgeted at $47m
(including contingency) 28 . Major new telescopes and major adaptive optics
upgrades of existing facilities seem to be occurring at a global rate of around
one per year, so it seems reasonable to estimate the value of the market for
adaptive optics on major telescopes to be of the order of $50m or £34m per
annum.
Astronomy
Size of market sector 29
Share of market addressable by adaptive optics
technologies 30
27
Very Small (£7B)
High (100%)
Steve Muellner, CEO Meade instruments, 2007
W.M. Keck Observatory Next Generation AO System Build-to-Cost Review Committee
Report, April 6, 2009
28
US Office of Management and Budget,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/nasa.html, The ASTRONET Infrastructure
Roadmap: A strategic plan for European Astronomy, http://www.astroneteu.org/IMG/pdf/Astronet-Book.pdf, estimate for rest of world spending based on relative
share of world health spending
29
This is a rough order of magnitude estimate of the proportion of sector spend that might
benefit in some way from some sort of adaptive optics technology. This is not as estimate of
the likely sales from adaptive optics activities, which may be one or more orders of
magnitude lower
30
65
Astronomy
Growth of market segment
Very low
Potential impact of adaptive optics
Very high
Maturity of adaptive optics systems
Very high
Table 1: Summary of attractiveness of astronomy sector for adaptive optics
5.2
BIOMEDICAL
The spending on medicine worldwide is estimated to be around £3200B per
year, or 7.7% of world GDP 31 . Of this, the ophthalmic market is estimated to
be worth £19B per annum, and growing at about 7% per annum 32 . With an
ageing population, expenditure on ophthalmology is likely to continue to rise.
This, coupled with the increasing demand for digital technologies in
healthcare to facilitate storage and sharing of information, makes this sector
particularly attractive for adaptive optics technologies.
Refractive laser surgery is a particularly well established market with adaptive
optics technologies already in place (the worldwide market for refractive
surgery was estimated to exceed £2B in 2008 33 ) . The UK prospects may be
better in digital ophthalmology, however, with Optos already investigating
the possibility of developing an adaptive optics scanning laser
ophthalmoscope.
The market for microscopy is more modest at £2B, but is growing at 9.1% per
annum 34 .
31
World Health Organisation, 2006
BCC Research, September 2006, The U.S. Market for Prescription Ophthalmic Drugs,
Devices, Diagnostics, and Surgical Equipment, and World Health Organisation data
32
33
Ophthalmology Times - September 15, 2006, cited at Lasik Surgery News,
www.lasiksurgerynews.com/news/eye-vision-statistics.shtml
34
BCC Research, June 2007, Microscopy: The Global Market
66
Biomedical
Size of market sector 35
Small (£21B)
Share of market addressable by adaptive optics
technologies
High (100%)
Growth of market segment
High
Potential impact of adaptive optics
High
Maturity of adaptive optics systems
Medium
Table 2: Summary of attractiveness of biomedical sector for adaptive optics
5.3
DEFENCE AND SECURITY
In the US, defence is a major market for adaptive optics. Public records on US
government defence contracts show that ten specialist (small or mediumsized) adaptive optics companies in the US have won defence contracts in
the last three years, with an average value of $2.5m per company per
annum.
Specific data for adaptive optics contracts for large defence companies
could not be obtained, and some small and medium sized companies
perform adaptive optics as a small part of their overall business. Therefore, in
the absence of more accurate data, if we assume the $2.5m per annum is
representative of all US companies with defence interests, the total for the 27
companies comes to $68m per annum. The US is estimated to account for
55% of global defence spending, so the global defence market for adaptive
optics is somewhere in the region of $122m, or £83m.
Whilst defence spending in the US is relative stable, the more modest market
for security is certainly growing.
35
Global ophthalmic market is estimated to be £19B, microscopy market is £2B
67
Defence and Security
Size of market sector 36
Share of market addressable by adaptive optics
technologies
Growth of market segment
Large (£962B)
Low (<1%)
Low
Potential impact of adaptive optics
Medium
Maturity of adaptive optics systems
High
Table 3: Summary of attractiveness of defence and security sector for adaptive optics
5.4
MANUFACTURING AND INDUSTRIAL INSPECTION
Whilst manufacturing is an enormous market sector worldwide (11% of global
GDP), the ability of adaptive optics to have a major impact seems limited to
niche activities like specialist laser machining.
£825B defence, £136B security. Sources: CIA factbook 2009, International Monetary Fund
2008, http://www.securitypark.co.uk/security-market.asp
36
68
1600
1400
Revenues(£m)
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
Biomedical
Manufacturing
Consumer Devices
Communications
Other
Figure 32: Worldwide commercial laser revenues, 2008 (£4.8B total) 37
According to Laser Focus World’s Optoelectronics Report, the world laser
market has been significantly affected by the worldwide economic
downturn, with 2009 revenues expected to more than 10% lower than in 2008.
The laser manufacturing sector is estimated to be worth about £1.4B per
annum.
Although the share of the manufacturing market relevant to adaptive optics
is currently extremely small (less than 0.1%), there is the potential for adaptiveoptics-enabled laser-based manufacturing to grow significantly in the future.
Manufacturing and industrial inspection
Size of market sector 38
Share of market addressable by adaptive optics
technologies
37
Large (£6600B)
Low (<1%)
Optoelectronics Report 7, January 1 2009, www.optoelectronicsreport.com
UN data for 2007 for top 12 countries. Rest of the world estimated from relative share of
GDP
38
69
Manufacturing and industrial inspection
Growth of market segment 39
Medium
Potential impact of adaptive optics
Low
Maturity of adaptive optics systems
Medium
Table 4: Summary of attractiveness of manufacturing sector for adaptive optics
5.5
CONSUMER DEVICES
In mass-produced optical devices like digital cameras for the consumer
market, a major factor in the overall performance of the device is the systemlevel optimisation – i.e. the appropriate matching of individual components
to deliver the best overall system properties.
Consumer devices
Size of market sector 40
Share of market addressable by adaptive optics
technologies
Medium (£476B)
Medium (10%)
Growth of market segment
Very high
Potential impact of adaptive optics
Medium
Maturity of adaptive optics systems
Low
Table 5: Summary of attractiveness of consumer devices sector for adaptive optics
39
Very high in China and other parts of the Far East, very low in Europe/US
Of which about £70B mobile phone handsets, £16B digital cameras, £33B optical storage.
Sources: Industry Insight to World Consumer Electronics (2004-2009), Consumer Electronics
Association, http://www.CE.org
40
70
Performing this matching can be a costly process, and this represents an
opportunity for adaptive optics to add value. Wavefront sensing
technologies could be used in the manufacture of consumer devices to
automatically match components.
In addition, if adaptive optics systems can be made small enough and
cheap enough, the market for incorporating adaptive optics into consumer
devices could be an attractive one, particularly for devices that offer high
levels of optical zoom.
Demand for consumer electronics seems to be growing at an ever-increasing
rate, so there would be a high reward for providing adaptive optics
technologies for this market.
5.6
COMMUNICATIONS AND SENSING
The telecommunications market is growing exponentially with ever-increasing
demand for bandwidth choking existing networks. The use of adaptive optics
for free-space optical communications to increase bandwidth either for
specialist or mass-market applications seems to be an attractive proposition.
Sensors play a key role in many technologies including environmental
monitoring, drug discovery, structural integrity assessment, automotive safety
and energy saving, and the global sensing market is estimated to be worth
more than £25B per annum 41 . Adaptive optics can play a part in particular
for remote-sensing applications, where distortions introduced by the
atmosphere need to be measured or compensated.
Communications and sensing
Size of market sector 42
Large (£1045B)
Share of market addressable by adaptive optics
technologies
Medium (10%)
Growth of market segment
41
Very high
Sensors Knowledge Transfer Network
World Trade Organization,
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/telecom_e/telecom_e.htm
42
71
Communications and sensing
Potential impact of adaptive optics
High
Maturity of adaptive optics systems
Medium
Table 6: Summary of attractiveness of communications sector for adaptive optics
5.7
SUMMARY
The application of adaptive optics has broadened from its birth in astronomy
to embrace a range of new areas. We have outlined in the sections above
some of the factors that will determine how attractive different market
sectors will be.
Globally, adaptive optics will be of greatest commercial value in those
sectors that have the largest (or possibly fastest growing) addressable
markets, and at the same time derive most added value or impact from
adaptive optics technology.
Figure 33 is an approximate attempt to categorise different sectors
according to these two dimensions. Arrows indicate expected growth of
market size (not to scale).
72
Figure 33: Attractiveness of different market sectors (global)
5.8
CONCLUSIONS FOR UK PHOTONICS
The UK photonics sector has established activities in adaptive optics across a
broad range of applications. With the global nature of today’s business, there
is little to be gained by looking at a technology’s prospects in the UK or even
European market in isolation (except in the case where patents of limited
geographic scope apply).
Of course, in planning route to market, it makes sense to roll out production
on a limited scale initially, and in doing so it makes sense to bear in mind the
relative sizes of potential markets. A useful predictor in this case for relative
sizes of different regions is share of global GDP, which breaks down as: UK
(4.4%), rest of EU (26%), US (24%), Japan (8.1%), China (7.3%), rest of world
(31%) 43 .
With reference to Figure 33, the sectors that UK photonics should ideally seek
to exploit are those markets with good global prospects and ideally an
43
International Monetary Fund, 2008
73
established UK capability. Communications and Biomedical sectors
(especially ophthalmology) are particularly attractive commercially, as these
promise large markets in which adaptive optics could make a real
difference. The Biomedical sector is probably the more exciting short-term
prospect for the UK with companies like Optos already well established, but
Communications may offer an even bigger opportunity in the longer term
given the increasing demand. Consumer Devices and Manufacturing
represent large potential markets (and are growing fast in the case of
Consumer Devices), but the value proposition for adaptive optics in these
sectors is weaker.
Defence is a fairly mature market for adaptive optics, and will continue to
provide interesting applications, possibly providing spin-out opportunities to
other sectors (such as technologies for communications and sensing). It is
unlikely to grow significantly, however, and the UK research base does not
seem particularly active in this area.
Astronomy is a smaller and more tightly defined sector than the others
presented here, and the one with the clearest benefit from adaptive optics.
Although it is relatively small, there is still potential for growth with some
ambitious adaptive optics projects underway for extremely large telescopes,
and the potential for developing the modest market for amateur astronomy.
A key to unlock this market will be the development of smaller, lower-cost
adaptive optics systems. If this can be achieved, there will be the added
benefit of open up the much larger market for consumer devices like digital
cameras.
74
6
ANNEX – ORGANISATIONS ACTIVE IN ADAPTIVE OPTICS WORLDWIDE
6.1
ACADEMIC/GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS
Countr
y
Organisation
Activities
ANU Research School of Astron. and
Astrophys.
Univ. of Adelaide, School of Chemistry &
Physics
Univ. of Sydney, School of Physics
Astronomical AO.
Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics
Astronomical AO.
Laval University, COPL
Liquid deformable mirrors.
Ryerson University, Dept. of Mech. &
Industrial Eng.
University of Victoria, LACIR
MEMS micromirrors for AO in vision science.
Institute of Optics and Electronics, C.A.S.
AO for inertial confinement fusion & ophthalmoscopy.
Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers
(INSU)
Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Grenoble
(LAOG)
Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
(LAM)
Laboratoire pour L'Utilisation des Lasers
Intenses
Observatoire de Paris, Meudon
Astronomical AO.
ONERA
AO systems development.
European Southern Observatory, AO
Team
Fraunhofer-Institut für Photonische
Mikrosysteme
Kiepenheuer-Institut für Sonnenphysik
Astronomical AO.
Kirchhoff Institute for Physics, Univ. of
Heidelberg
Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie
AO for biomedical optics.
Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische
Physik
Münster University of Applied Sciences
Astronomical AO.
Astronomical Observatory of Padova
Astronomical AO.
Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri
Astronomical AO.
N.U.I. Galway, Applied Optics
AO research.
Technion, Physics Dept.
Multi-conjugate AO; Ocular AO.
Australi
a
Active optics for gravitational wave interferometry.
Adaptive optics for astronomy and confocal microscopy.
Canad
a
MEMS AO for astronomy.
China
France
Astronomical AO.
MOEMS deformable mirrors.
AO for high power lasers.
Astronomical AO.
Germany
Micromechanical mirror devices.
AO for Solar astronomy.
Astronomical AO.
Intra-cavity laser AO.
Italy
Ireland
Israel
Japan
Institute of Physical and Chemical
Research (RIKEN)
National Astronomical Observatory of
Japan
The Netherlands
Solid-state sodium guide star laser for astronomical AO.
Astronomical AO.
Netherlands Research School for
Astronomy (NOVA)
Sterrewacht Leiden
Astronomical AO instrumentation.
T.U. Delft, Optical Microsystems Group
Micro-machined deformable mirrors; Liquid crystal SLMs.
Astronomical AO instrumentation.
75
Countr
y
Organisation
Activities
Institute of Atmospheric Optics, Tomsk
General AO; Atmospheric optics.
Institute on Laser and Information
Technologies
Moscow State University, Lab. of Adaptive
Optics
Deformable mirrors for high power lasers.
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
Astronomical AO.
Universidad de Murcia, Laboratorio de
Optica
AO for ophthalmology.
Institute for Solar Physics, Stockholm Univ.
AO for Solar astronomy.
Lund Observatory
Astronomical AO.
Russia
AO for ophthalmology; Wavefront sensors.
Spain
Swede
n
Switzerland
Istituto Ricerche Solari Locarno (IRSOL)
AO for Solar astronomy.
United Kingdom
Cardiff University, Optometry & Vision
Sciences
City University, Dept. of Optometry &
Visual Science
Imperial College, Photonics
AO optical coherence tomography for retinal imaging.
Heriot-Watt Univ., Applied Optics and
Photonics
STFC, UK Astronomy Technology Centre
Wave-front sensing; Optical metrology, laser beam pulse
shaping, microscopy
Astronomical AO instrumentation.
STFC, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Large deformable mirrors
University College London, O.S.L.
Adaptive secondary mirrors; X-ray active optics, novel facesheet materials
Astronomical & industrial AO R&D, microscopy
Univ. of Durham, CfAI.
University of Nottingham, Dept. of Elec
Eng.
University of Oxford, Dept. of Engineering
Science
Univ. of Strathclyde, Inst. of Photonics
AO for vision science.
Astronomical and industrial AO R&D.
Integrated wavefront sensors, microscopy with ultrasonics
and infra-red fusion
Microscopy
AO for ophthalmology & FSO communications, microscopy
United States
Air Force Maui Optical & Supercomputing
Site
A.F. Research Laboratory, Starfire Optical
Range
American Museum of Natural History
Imaging of satellites; astronomy.
Boston University Photonics Center
MOEMS deformable mirrors.
DARPA Microsystems Technology Office
MOEMS devices.
Gemini Observatory
Astronomical AO.
Georgia Institute of Technology
Liquid crystal diffractive lenses for eyeglasses.
Indiana University School of Optometry
AO optical coherence tomography for retinal imaging.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Laser guide stars.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Astronomical AO; Adaptive optics for optical
communication.
Large segmented mirrors, high energy laser beam directors.
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
SOMTC
Mount Wilson Observatory
Laser guide star adaptive optics.
Exoplanetary coronograph.
Astronomical AO.
National Solar Observatory / Sacramento
Peak
Princeton University, Mech. and
Aerospace Dept.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, CATS
AO for Solar astronomy.
Univ. of Arizona, Steward Observatory
Astronomical AO.
Univ. of Arizona, Centre for Astron.
Adaptive Optics
Univ. of California, Berkeley, School of
Optometry
Univ. of California, Center for Adaptive
Optics
Astronomical AO.
AO coronography, exoplanet detection.
Adaptive scanning microscope.
AO for high resolution retinal imaging.
Wide-ranging AO research.
76
Countr
y
Organisation
Activities
U.C. Davis, Dept. of Ophthalmology and
Vision Science
UCO Lick Observatory, Laboratory for
Adaptive Optics
Univ. of Central Florida, College of Optics
& Photonics
Univ. of Chicago, Dept. of Astron. &
Astroph.
Univ. of Hawaii
AO for ophthalmology.
Univ. of Houston, College of Optometry
AO scanning laser ophthalmoscopy.
Univ. of Illinois
Laser guide star AO.
Univ. of North Carolina at Charlotte, Dept.
of Physics
Univ. of Puerto Rico, Physics
Wavefront sensing; atmospheric turbulence.
Univ. of Rochester, Centre for Visual
Science
Univ. of Rochester, Laboratory for Laser
Energetics
W.M. Keck Observatory
Ophthalmic AO research.
Astronomical AO.
Adaptive-focus liquid and liquid crystal lenses.
Astronomical AO; laser guide stars.
Astronomical AO.
AO for astronomical interferometry.
Deformable mirrors for laser fusion.
Astronomical AO.
Source: www.adaptiveoptics.org
6.2
COMMERCIAL ORGANISATIONS
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
Applications
A
S
T
R
O
N
Australia
Iatia
www.iatia.com.au
Melbourne
Founded in 1999, Iatia Limited develops digital wavefront
imaging solutions for visualization and measurement. Iatia's QPI
technology enables the visualization and measurement of
invisible or hard to see objects from transparent biological cells,
optics of the human eye to hidden and camouflaged objects
in military and security operations
B
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D
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F
/
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A
N
/
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C
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D
E
V
Digital wavefront
imaging using
quantitative phase
imaging
• • •
Technologies
Applications
C
O
M
M
S
•
Turnover £480k
Organisati
on
Description
A
S
T
R
O
N
France
ALPAO
www.alpao.fr
Grenoble
ALPAO is a spin-off company of the Université Joseph Fourier
(Grenoble) and Floralis. ALPAO supplies exclusive and
patented magnetic actuator deformable mirrors, highly
sensitive wavefront sensors for closed loops and adaptive
optics systems. Customers include European Southern
Observatory (ESO) and other observatories, and the French
Aerospace lab (Onera)
www.cilas.com
Cilas
Orleans
CILAS is 63% owned by EADS Astrium, 37% owned by AREVA.
CILAS develops, manufactures and sells lasers and deformable
mirrors based on the piezoelectric effect. 50% of business is
military, 50% civilian. 70% of sales are within France, 30% exports.
Deformable mirrors,
wavefront sensors,
adaptive optics systems
•
Laser rangefinding,
laser amplifiers,
deformable mirrors,
particle size analysers,
optical coatings,
optical ceramics,
nanotechnology
•
B
I
O
M
E
D
D
E
F
/
S
E
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M
A
N
/
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C
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D
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V
C
O
M
M
S
•
• •
77
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
A
S
T
R
O
N
France
Imagine
Eyes
Orsay (nr
Paris)
Imagine
Optic
Orsay (nr
Paris)
www.imagine-eyes.com
Imagine Eyes is a spinout of Imagine Optic. Imagine Eyes
develop, manufacture and market advanced ophthalmic
medical devices that use Shack-Hartmann wavefront and
adaptive optics technologies to respond to market needs that
cannot effectively be addressed using other methods
www.imagine-optic.com
Founded in Orsay, France in 1996. Imagine Optics' clients are
among the world's top companies and include Sony, Nikon,
Thomson, Zeiss, NASA, the U.S. Air Force, Essilor, Aliena (Alcatel
Space), EADS, the European Southern Observatory, the
European Space Agency (ESA), amongst others.
Turnover £2.1m, 23 employees
Memscap
www.memscap.com
Grenoble
MEMSCAP manufactures MEMS components, such as radiofrequency switches, variable capacitors, inductors, optical
switches and attenuators, and sensors. It caters to a wide
variety of markets, including network and medical equipment
suppliers, aircraft manufacturers, research institutes and
universities, and cosmetic businesses
Phasics
Turnover £14m
www.phasics.com
Palaiseau (nr
Paris)
Shaktiware
Phasics offers laser characterisation and optical metrology,
using patented wavefront analysis technology.
www.shaktiware.fr
Marseilles
Founded in 2000, Shaktiware offers system design and software
solutions for adaptive optics applications in areas such as
health, transport and construction, finance, food, leisure, and
communications
Varioptic
Turnover £2.2m
www.varioptic.com
Lyon
Varioptic's vision is to establish liquid lenses alongside glass and
plastic lenses as the core building blocks of optical systems.
Varioptic is a privately owned company financed by venture
capital and equity companies
Organisati
on
Description
Ocular wavefront
metrology, vision
simulation, retinal
imaging,
electromagnetic
deformable mirrors,
command and control
software
Provides ShackHartmann wavefront
sensing technologies
for adaptive optics,
quality control and
optical measurement.
In 2005, Imagine Optic
introduced the world's
first X-EUV wavefront
sensor for synchrotron
metrology and
nanolithography.
MEMS deformable
mirrors
Munich
Carl Zeiss
Meditec
Founded in 1999 by Dr. Frieder Loesel, and Prof. Dr. Josef Bille.
Josef Bille is widely renowned as the "Wavefront Guru". He is the
visionary who first used wavefront technology as well as
adaptive optics for measuring and correcting refractive errors
of the eye in the late 80's. Both founders are further well known
as key innovators in the field of ultrashort pulse laser surgery.
Sold rights to WaveScan product line to VISX (now Abbott
Medical Optics) in 2003.
www.meditec.zeiss.com
Carl Zeiss Meditec is an integrated medical technology
D
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E
V
C
O
M
M
S
•
• •
•
•
•
•
Adaptive optics control
systems and software.
High voltage amplifier
for deformable mirrors
• •
•
•
•
•
Liquid lenses based on
electrowetting and
associated software
drivers
Technologies
Applications
A
S
T
R
O
N
www.2010pv.com
B
I
O
M
E
D
Uses 4-wave lateral
shearing interferometry
for wavefront analysis
Germany
20/10
Perfect
Vision
Applications
B
I
O
M
E
D
Wavefront sensors and
integrated adaptive
optics systems as an
input to refractive eye
surgery
•
Wavefront analysis,
refractive surgery
systems
•
D
E
F
/
S
E
C
M
A
N
/
I
N
S
C
O
N
D
E
V
C
O
M
M
S
78
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
A
S
T
R
O
N
Germany
Jena
Holoeye
Berlin
Jenoptik
Jena
Turnover £134m
www.holoeye.com
Founded in Berlin in 1999 to provide industry with microstructured and diffractive optical structures or components,
and create new industrial applications. Developed the first real
"Plug-and-Play" Liquid Crystal device that can be directly
plugged to a personal computer to enable active spatial light
modulation. Partnerships with several microdisplay
manufacturers enable Holoeye to offer Liquid Crystal
microdisplay components as OEM-solution in higher quantities.
www.jenoptik-los.de
Major manufacturer of lasers, optical components and systems
for a wide range of applications
Optocraft
www.optocraft.de
Erlangen
Founded in 2001 by graduates of the chair for optics of the
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
Physik
Instrumente
www.physikinstrumente.com
Trumpf
Ditzingen
B
I
O
M
E
D
D
E
F
/
S
E
C
M
A
N
/
I
N
S
C
O
N
D
E
V
C
O
M
M
S
company focused on ophthalmology and more recently
neuro/ear, nose, throat surgery
Turnover £475m, 3436 employees
Karlsruhe
Applications
Delivers micro- and nanopositioning solutions for all major hightech markets: Semiconductors; Data Storage; Photonics, Fiber
Optics, Telecom; Biotechnology and Medicine; Laser, Optics,
Microscopy; Aerospace Engineering; Precision Machining;
Astronomy; Microsystems Technology
350 employees
www.trumpf.com
Founded in 1923, TRUMPF is a world leader in industrial lasers
and laser system technology
• • • • •
Spatial light modulator
systems, diffractive
optical elements
(DOEs), LCOS
microdisplays
Lasers and optics,
photonics,
mechatronics.
Diffractive optical
elements, liquid crystal
modulators, integrated
optical modulators
Shack-Hartmann
wavefront sensors,
diffractive optical
elements, metrology
services, interferometry
Piezo tip/tilt mirrors,
large custom piezo
steering mirrors, piezo
actuators/phase shifters
• • • •
•
•
• •
•
•
•
Laser scanner welding
system using AO mirror
Turnover £375m, 1805 employees
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
A
S
T
R
O
N
Israel
Ophir
Optronics
Jerusalem
Applications
www.ophiropt.com
Established in 1976, Ophir Optronics is a global leader in
precision IR optics components and laser measurement
equipment. In January 2006, Ophir acquired Spiricon Inc., a USbased world leader in the Laser Beam Profile market with sister
company, Spiricon GmbH in Germany, and is now the world's
largest manufacturer in this sector.
Beam profilers
incorporating ShackHartmann wavefront
sensors
B
I
O
M
E
D
D
E
F
/
S
E
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M
A
N
/
I
N
S
C
O
N
D
E
V
C
O
M
M
S
• •
79
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
A
S
T
R
O
N
Italy
Adaptica
www.adaptica.com
Padova
Designs and manufactures adaptive optics components and
systems, deformable optical elements and high performance,
easy to integrate, opto-electronic devices for the optimization
and enhancement of optical systems.
www.ads-int.com/adaptive_optics.htm
ADS
International
Lecco
Microgate
Bolzano
Spot Optics
ADS International is an engineering company working in the
field of telescope and radiotelescope design as well as the
design and production of innovative scientific instrumentation.
www.microgate.it/engineering/default.asp
Engineering division of Microgate , small Italian-based firm
specialising in timing equipment for sport and control systems
for adaptive optics.
25 employees
www.spot-optics.com
• •
Deformable mirrors for
telescopes and system
design
•
Development and
production of
sophisticated control
systems for adaptive
optics and telescopes
control
•
•
Padova
Founded in 1996 in Padova, with a focus on wavefront sensors
and applications to both industry and R&D
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
Japan
jp.hamamatsu.com/en/index.html
Hamamatsu
City
Founded in 1953, main product lines are Photomultiplier Tubes,
Light Sources, Imaging Tubes, Opto-Semiconductor, Imaging
and Analyzing System
Wakoshi
Nidek
Gamagori
Turnover £574m, 2580 employees
www.megaopto.co.jp/english/index.html
Founded 1996 for R&D, manufacture and sale of solid-state
lasers
www.nidek.com
Founded in 1971, NIDEK has grown into a leading supplier of
surgical and diagnostic products for vision care. Based in
Gamagori, Japan, NIDEK is today firmly established in over 90
countries through a network of wholly owned subsidiaries and
specialist independent distributors.
D
E
F
/
S
E
C
M
A
N
/
I
N
S
C
O
N
D
E
V
C
O
M
M
S
• •
Applications
A
S
T
R
O
N
Hamamatsu
B
I
O
M
E
D
Deformable mirrors,
embedded adaptive
optics systems, lcdbased products
Wavefront sensor
systems based on the
Shack-Hartmann
principle
MegaOpto
Applications
B
I
O
M
E
D
Liquid crystal spatial
light modulators
• •
Solid state sodium
guidestar lasers
•
D
E
F
/
S
E
C
M
A
N
/
I
N
S
C
O
N
D
E
V
C
O
M
M
S
•
OPD-Scan II for
wavefront analysis and
corneal topography
•
Technologies
Applications
Turnover £255m, 1453 employees
Organisati
on
Description
A
S
T
R
O
N
Netherlands
Flexible
Opto
Delft
www.okotech.com
Founded in 1997, Flexible Optical B.V. is a small Dutch business
operating in the field of research and application-oriented
development of high resolution optical systems based on
wave-front sensing and aberration correction
Complete closed-loop
adaptive optical
systems for real-time
correction of optical
aberrations and
generation of precision
B
I
O
M
E
D
• •
D
E
F
/
S
E
C
M
A
N
/
I
N
S
C
O
N
D
E
V
C
O
M
M
S
•
80
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
Applications
A
S
T
R
O
N
Netherlands
B
I
O
M
E
D
D
E
F
/
S
E
C
M
A
N
/
I
N
S
C
O
N
D
E
V
C
O
M
M
S
wavefronts; HartmannShack Sensor;
Micromachined
membrane deformable
mirrors (MMDM); liquid
crystal lenses
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
A
S
T
R
O
N
Russia
Adaptive
Optics Ltd
(Night N
optics)
Moscow
Founded in 1999, main interest is the design of complex AO
systems to be used to control and shape high power laser
beams (incl. Femto second ones), adaptive imaging systems,
and also to build adaptive laser interferometers.
TURN Ltd
www.turn.ru
Moscow
Private developer, manufacturer, and worldwide exporter of
night optics, electronic optical devices, adaptive optics,
components and accessories, products, modern equipment
and technologies since 1991
Complete closed-loop
adaptive optical
systems, bimorph
mirrors, ShackHartmann wavefront
sensors, M2 sensors,
interferometers, human
eye aberrometers
Deformable mirrors and
control units; closed
loop systems including
Shack-Hartmann
wavefront sensor and
deformable mirror
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
www.nightn.ru
Alcon
www.alcon.com
Hunenberg
Founded in 1945 in Fort Worth, Texas. 75% owned by Nestle.
Develops, manufactures and distributes eye care products in
more than 180 countries. Business organised into three divisions:
Surgical, Pharmaceutical and Consumer Vision Care.
Kaegiswil
Heptagon
Zurich
Turnover £4300m, 15000 employees
www.leister.com/axetris
A division of Leister. Axetris is a designer and manufacturer of
micro-technology (MEMS) based components and modules in
the areas of micro-optics, infrared sources for gas detection
and mass-flow sensors / controllers
500 employees
www.heptagon.fi
Founded 1993, offers wafer scale CMOS imaging lens
technology. Experts in micro-optics and diffractive optics
design. Heptagon is a privately held Swiss-Finnish manufacturer
of diffractive and refractive micro-optical products. Heptagon's
components are used in optical communication equipment,
miniature displays, and a number of optical sensors. Heptagon
supplies high fill-factor microlens arrays for the Shack-Hartmann
wavefront sensor in ESO (European Southern Observatory)
telescopes.
B
I
O
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E
D
D
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/
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M
A
N
/
I
N
S
• •
•
•
•
C
O
N
D
E
V
C
O
M
M
S
Applications
A
S
T
R
O
N
Switzerland
Axetris
Applications
B
I
O
M
E
D
Wavefront guided laser
eye surgery
•
Shack-Hartmann
microlens arrays, microoptics, fast and slow
axis collimators for high
power laser diode bars,
fibre micro-lens arrays,
aspheric micro-lenses
and arrays
Micro-optics and
diffractive optics,
microlens arrays for
Shack-Hartmann
wavefront sensor
•
•
D
E
F
/
S
E
C
M
A
N
/
I
N
S
•
C
O
N
D
E
V
C
O
M
M
S
•
• •
81
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
A
S
T
R
O
N
Switzerland
SUSS
MicroOptics
Neuchatel
Organisati
on
www.suss-microoptics.com
Founded 1999, a division of SUSS MicroTec
Oxford
Andor
Technology
Plc,
Belfast
Arden
Photonics
Ltd,
Birmingham
BAE Systems
Advanced
Technology
Centre
Northampto
n
Cablefree
Solutions
Hampton Hill
Davin
Optronics
Watford
B
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O
M
E
D
D
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F
/
S
E
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M
A
N
/
I
N
S
C
O
N
D
E
V
Refractive microlens
arrays in 200mm fused
silica and silicon wafers
•
Technologies
Applications
C
O
M
M
S
•
Turnover £1.6m
Description
A
S
T
R
O
N
United Kingdom
Adaptive
Eyecare Ltd,
Applications
www.adaptive-eyecare.com
Adaptive Eyecare Limited is a UK company formed to research,
develop and apply adaptive ophthalmic lenses. The company
was founded by Oxford physics professor Joshua Silver in 1996.
Designed water-filled lenses that can be tuned by the wearer.
10000 pairs of these glasses have been made in China and
distributed to people that need them in Africa.
www.andor.com
Set up in 1989 out of Queen's University in Belfast and has 15
offices worldwide.
Turnover £25m, 190 employees
www.ardenphotonics.com
Founded in 2001, specialising in instrumentation for the
measurement and profiling of lasers, LEDs, optical fibers, and
optical components. Also provides technical marketing.
www.baesystems.com/Businesses/SharedServices/Divisions/Adv
ancedTechnologyCentre
BAE Systems ATC provides research and development,
consultancy, specialist manufacturing and technology
brokering services into defence, aerospace and commercial
markets.
Turnover £42m, 450 employees
www.cablefree.co.uk/
Founded in 1997, CableFree Solutions is a designer and
manufacturer of products for high performance wireless
connectivity. Products include Free Space Optics (FSO) and
Broadband Radios which are installed in over 50 countries
worldwide.
www.davinoptronics.com
Founded in 1973, designs and manufactures precision optical
systems and components for industries including laser, thermal
imaging, defence, simulation, electronic pre-press, machine
vision and medical
D
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N
D
E
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C
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M
S
• • •
•
•
•
•
•
Free space optical
communications
Optical, mechanical,
electronics and
software design;
precision optics
manufacturing; thin film
coating; optomechanical assembly
and test
M
A
N
/
I
N
S
•
Adaptive ophthalmic
lenses
High performance
digital cameras; CCD,
EMCCD and ICCD
detectors and
spectrographs; Electron
multiplying CCD
cameras for wavefront
sensing
Curvature wavefront
sensors for optical and
surface metrology;
Laser beam profiling;
Optical fiber
technology; Software
design; Optical design
Bimorph deformable
mirrors; AO systems
development
B
I
O
M
E
D
• •
82
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
A
S
T
R
O
N
United Kingdom
e2v
Technologie
s Plc
Chelmsford
www.e2v.com
Founded in 1947, e2v has headquarters in the UK and a global
network of sales and technical support offices. e2v design and
supply specialised components and sub-systems for medical
and science, aerospace and defence, and commercial and
industrial markets.
Turnover £205m, 1800 employees
Epigem Ltd
www.epigem.co.uk
Redcar
Established in 1995, specialists in polymer based
microengineering.
Observatory
Sciences Ltd
www.observatorysciences.co.uk
Cambridge
OptiSense
Horsham
Optos Plc
Dunfermline
QinetiQ
Farnborough
Starpoint
Adaptive
Optics Ltd
County
Durham
Thorlabs Ltd
Cambridge
Founded in 1998, provides consultancy, systems and services,
specialising in developing software for control systems used by
telescopes and scientific instruments
www.optisense.co.uk
Specialists in designing and developing scientific instruments,
including electronics, optics, software and user interface
www.optos.com
Applications
CCD and CMOS
detectors; Specialist
semiconductors; high
performance electron
devices; advanced
Imaging sensors and
cameras; sensing
products including Xray detectors and
thermal imaging
Microlens arrays;
microfluidic devices;
ultra high resolution
flexible circuit boards;
polymer waveguides
Instrument control
software for large AO
systems
B
I
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M
E
D
D
E
F
/
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E
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M
A
N
/
I
N
S
C
O
N
D
E
V
• • • •
• •
C
O
M
M
S
•
• •
•
•
Light detection, gas
detection
•
•
AO for retinal imaging
Founded in 1992, with headquarters in Scotland and operations
in the US, Canada, UK and Germany. Optos Plc makes devices
that produce ultra wide field, high resolution images of the
retina.
Turnover £69m, 400 employees
www.qinetiq.com
AO systems research
• • •
•
Deformable mirror drive
electronics; Integrated
AO systems
• •
•
Adaptive Optics Toolkit,
deformable mirrors,
Shack-Hartmann
wavefront sensors,
Adaptive Scanning
Optical Microscope
•
Technologies
Applications
Qinetiq operates principally in the UK and North America and
has recently entered the Australian defence consulting market.
They provide research, technical advice, technology solutions
and services to the defence and security sector. 19% owned by
MOD.
Turnover £1,366m, 13000 employees
www.starpointao.com
Formed in 2001 from the adaptive optics research programme
at the University of Durham, Starpoint offers adaptive optics
products and services, at both component and system level,
notably its range of multi-channel high voltage amplifier
systems which can drive the majority of deformable mirrors
available today.
www.thorlabs.com
Thorlabs' UK design and manufacturing facility adds nanopositioning products for high precision alignment applications
and optical tables and specialized vibration isolation products
to Thorlabs' (worldwide) range.
•
500 employees.
Organisati
on
United States
Description
A
S
T
R
O
N
B
I
O
M
E
D
D
E
F
/
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M
A
N
/
I
N
S
C
O
N
D
E
V
C
O
M
M
S
83
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
A
S
T
R
O
N
United States
Abbott
Medical
Optics
Santa Ana,
CA
Active
Optical
Systems LLC
Albuquerqu
e, NM
Adaptive
Optics
Associates,
Inc.
Cambridge,
MA
AlcatelLucent Bell
Labs
Murray Hill,
NJ
AMO
Wavefront
Sciences,
Inc.
Albuquerqu
e, NM
AOptix
Technologie
s Inc.
Campbell,
CA
Axsys
Technologie
s Inc.
Rocky Hill, CT
Baker
Adaptive
Optics
Albuquerqu
e, NM
Applications
www.amo-inc.com
Founded in 1888, and acquired adaptive optics specialist
company Advanced Medical Optics in Feb 2009. Abbott
Medical Optics is a global leader in ophthalmic care,
comprised of three segments: cataract surgery/intraocular lens
(IOL), laser vision correction and eye care products.
Turnover £816m
www.activeopticalsystems.com
Active Optical Systems started in 2005 by developing the
lowest-cost high-quality deformable mirror on the market. AOS
then developed the low-cost wavefront sensor products on the
market today by leveraging the advances in USB and FireWire
(1394) interface cameras. By combining these technologies
AOS developed both conventional wavefront-sensor adaptive
optics systems and metric AO systems.
www.st.northropgrumman.com/aoa/index.html
Subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Space Technology. Adaptive
Optics Associates (AOA) was founded in 1978 and designs,
develops and manufactures a wide variety of standard and
custom electro-optic and opto-mechanical products. Since its
inception, AOA has steadily expanded its engineering and
manufacturing capabilities to provide its customers with the
highest quality products, systems and services.
www.alcatel-lucent.com/wps/portal/BellLabs
It has generated more than 33,000 patents since 1925 and has
played a pivotal role in inventing or perfecting key
communications technologies, including transistors, digital
networking and signal processing, lasers and fiber-optic
communications systems, communications satellites, cellular
telephony, electronic switching of calls, touch-tone dialing,
and modems.
www.wavefrontsciences.com
In January 2007, WaveFront Sciences was acquired by
Advanced Medical Optics, Inc. (now Abbott). WaveFront
Sciences was founded to commercialise advancements in the
area of diffractive optics technologies. The primary mission of
the company is the development of versatile, optics-based
products which may be applied either directly as stand-alone
instruments or embedded into industrial applications.
www.aoptix.com
Founded in 2000, with core technology expertise in the
application of advanced adaptive optics, they develop iris
biometrics based identification solutions and free space optical
communications solutions for both government and
commercial markets
Turnover £1.8m, 25 employees
www.axsys.com/scanning-systems-3
Founded in 1959. Vision – to be the premier supplier of optical
solutions for surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting
applications in markets ranging from ground to space.
Turnover £167m, 991 employees
www.bakeradaptiveoptics.com
Though started in 1991, Baker Adaptive Optics was created in
its present form in 1998 with the construction of an unusually
well equipped, grant-funded adaptive optics laboratory.
B
I
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M
E
D
D
E
F
/
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E
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M
A
N
/
I
N
S
D
E
V
C
O
M
M
S
•
Wavescan Wavefront
system uses ShackHartmann wavefront
sensor to measure eye
imperfections to high
accuracy
Membrane deformable
mirrors, ShackHartmann wavefront
sensors, metric
adaptive optics systems
• • • •
Large AO systems,
wavefront sensors
•
•
•
•
MEMS adaptive optics
systems; MEMS spatial
light modulator
Shack-Hartmann
wavefront sensors
C
O
N
• • •
•
Curvature deformable
(adaptive) mirrors,
curvature wavefront
sensors and associated
high-speed controls
Fast scanning mirrors,
laser and microinspection systems, and
integrated optical lens
assemblies
•
• •
MEMS sensors,
Deformable Mirrors,
Wavefront Sensors,
Control systems,
Systems Engineering
•
•
•
84
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
A
S
T
R
O
N
United States
Ball
Aerospace
&
Technologie
s Corp.
www.ballaerospace.com
Boulder, CO
Founded 1956, Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.
(commonly Ball Aerospace) is a manufacturer of spacecraft,
components, and instruments for defence, civil space and
commercial space applications. The company is a wholly
owned subsidiary of Ball Corp.
Bausch &
Lomb
Turnover £508m, 3000 employees
www.bausch.com/en_US/consumer/surgical/zyoptix_system.as
px
Rochester,
NY
Boeing
Integrated
Defense
Systems
Washington,
D.C.
Bossa Nova
Technologie
s
Venice, CA
Boston
Micromachi
nes Corp.
Cambridge,
MA
Boulder
Nonlinear
Systems
Lafeyette,
CO
CSA
Engineering
Mountain
View, CA
Tucson, AZ
EOS
Technologie
s, Inc.
Tucson, AZ
FASORtronic
s LLC
Albuquerqu
e, NM
Fast-steering mirrors
B
I
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E
D
•
D
E
F
/
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E
C
M
A
N
/
I
N
S
•
C
O
N
D
E
V
C
O
M
M
S
•
•
Wavefront guided laser
vision correction
Founded in 1853, Bausch & Lomb offers a comprehensive
portfolio of eye health products from contact lenses to laser
eye surgery equipment.
Turnover £1600m, employees 13000
www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/abl/
Represents over 50% of Boeing's total turnover ($60.9B in 2008).
Turnover £21760m, 72000 employees
www.bossanovatech.com/io.htm
US distributor for Imagine Optic
www.bostonmicromachines.com/
Founded in 1999, Boston Micromachines Corporation is a
leading provider of advanced MEMS-based mirror products for
use in commercial AO systems.
www.bnonlinear.com/
Founded in 1988. Experienced in liquid crystal design and
manufacturing.
www.csaengineering.com/adaptoptics/adaptopt.asp
Founded in 1982. Part of MOOG group. Working under contract
from Boeing on vibro-acoustic suppression and jitter mitigation
for the Airborne Laser.
Turnover £9.5m
Engineering
Synthesis
Design
Applications
www.engsynthesis.com/
Incorporated in 1996, Engineering Synthesis Design, Inc. (ESDI) is
a developer of metrology instrumentation and software serving companies of all sizes, major research laboratories, and
universities worldwide.
www.eostech.com/adaptive_optics.php
EOST is an Arizona corporation founded in 1995. Although part
of the EOS Group in Australia, EOST is an independent business
with separate management and financial structures.
www.fasortronics.com/
The mission of FASORtronics is to provide the astronomy
community with affordable, reliable and timely guidestar lasers
for use in adaptive optical systems.
Prime contractor for
airborne laser attached
to Boeing 747-400F (a
US Missile Defense
Agency programme).
Uses AO for beam
control (Lockheed
Martin).
Distributor of ShackHartmann wavefront
sensors
•
• • • •
•
MEMS deformable
mirrors, Adaptive Optics
Toolkit with Thorlabs
• • •
•
Analog liquid crystal on
silicon (LCOS) spatial
light modulators,
polarization rotators
and optical shutters
• •
•
Simulation, analysis,
design, and control
using fast steering
mirrors and deformable
mirrors and advanced
sensors. Beamwalk
control with beamwalk
mirrors.
Point diffraction
interferometer (PDI) for
wavefront sensing
•
•
•
Large AO systems for
astronomy
•
Sodium guidestar lasers
for AO systems
•
•
85
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
A
S
T
R
O
N
United States
Goodrich ISR
Systems
Chelmsford,
MA
Holochip,
Corp.
Albuquerqu
e, NM
Iris AO, Inc.
www.goodrich.com
Goodrich ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance)
Systems is a division of Goodrich Goodrich, a Fortune 500
company, and a leading global supplier of systems and
services to the aerospace and defense industry.
Turnover £4800m (for company as a whole)
www.holochip.com/
Goal is to become a leading adaptive lens manufacturer with
products including: OEM zoom lens modules for camera and
camera-module manufacturers; Adaptive singlet lenses for
optical research and engineering; Complete optical solutions
for military, medical, automotive and a host of other industries.
www.irisao.com
Berkeley, CA
Manufacturing process is designed from the outset to enable
extremely large stroke, low cost, small size and scalability to
meet requirements of imaging applications.
Kestrel Corp.
www.kestrelcorp.com/
Albuquerqu
e, NM
Founded in 1993, Kestrel Corporation is a high technology
company that is dedicated to product development and
commercialization through R&D and design engineering.
www.lexitek.com/
Lexitek, Inc.
Wellesley,
MA
Founded in 1996.Lexitek works with a wide range of customers:
aerospace companies, government laboratories, universities
and other research institutions, and small businesses.
Lite Cycles,
Inc.
www.litecycles.com
Tucson, AZ
Lockheed
Martin
Coherent
Technologie
s
Louisville,
CO
Mad City
Labs, Inc.
Madison, WI
Meadowlark
Optics, Inc.
Fredercik,
CO
MEMS
Optical, Inc.
Huntsville, AL
Applications
Lite Cycles, Inc. (LCI) is a leader in the design and development
of advanced Electro-Optical (EO) systems with an emphasis on
3-D Light/Laser Detection and Ranging (LIDAR/LADAR). LCI was
founded in 1995
www.lockheedmartin.com/ssc/coherent/
Building on its more than 20-year history, LMCT will extend its
reach by becoming the center of excellence for laser radar
within Lockheed Martin's Space Systems Company, offering
programs throughout the corporation access to the latest in
laser technology.
Turnover £5400m (Lockheed Martin Space Systems)
www.madcitylabs.com
Mad City Labs, Inc is a leading manufacturer of flexure based
nanopositioning systems capable of sub-nanometer positioning
resolution
www.meadowlarkoptics.com
In 1979, Tom Baur, researcher for the National Center for
Atmospheric Research, needed a solution that resulted in his
invention of the Pockels cells. With that flagship product,
Meadowlark Optics came to be, establishing a world standard
for innovative, ultrahigh-quality polarization optics.
www.memsoptical.com/
MEMS Optical, LLC, began operation in 1997, inheriting an
existing market in diffractive and refractive micro-optics
obtained from TBE. In 2006 MEMS Optical was wholly acquired
by JENOPTIK Laser, Optik, Systeme GmbH
Area cameras, linescan
cameras, focal plane
arrays, large AO
systems
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Adaptive polymer
lenses
• • •
Small scale, microelectro-mechanical
(MEMS) based AO
systems. Deformable
mirrors, high voltage
drive electronics.
Ophthalmic AO
systems.
Distorted grating
wavefront sensor.
Ophthalmic AO
• •
•
• • •
•
Turbulence phase
plates, which allow
well-characterized
wavefront aberrations
to be created in a lab,
to assist in AO system
development.
Diode-pumped laser
transmitters. Laser
guidestar sources for
AO.
• •
•
•
Solid-state sodium
guidestar laser for
astronomical AO. Beam
control system for
airborne laser (with
Boeing and Northrop
Grumman)
•
•
Nanopositioning, tip-tilt
mirrors
•
•
Liquid crystal spatial
light modulators
•
•
MEMS scanning twoaxis tilt mirrors; beam
splitters/shapers;
microlens arrays
• • • • •
•
86
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
A
S
T
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N
United States
MEMX, Inc.
www.memx.com/mems-adaptive-optics.htm
Albuquerqu
e, NM
Moog
MEMX inc. was formed in October of 2000 as a spin-off from
Sandia National Laboratories’ MEMS’ programme. Sandia
National Laboratories is a Government laboratory focused on
developing technology in support National Security
applications.
www.moog.com/
East Aurora,
NY
Founded in 1951, Moog is a premier precision motion control
solutions provider for today’s space and defence platforms.
MZA
Associates
Corp
Albuquerqu
e, NM
Northrop
Grumman
Directed
Energy
Systems
Redondo
Beach, CA
Ophthonix
Vista, CA
Optics in
Motion LLC
Turnover £1300m, 8800 employees
www.mza.com/
MZA was formed in 1991 to meet a need for advanced
simulation and analysis of adaptive optics systems at what is
now the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
www.st.northropgrumman.com/capabilities/directed_energy_s
yst/laser_technology/beam_control.html
Part of Northrop Grumman Space Technology.
ophthonix.izonlens.com/practitioners.php
Founded in December 2000, Ophthonix, Inc. has introduced
the first ever wavefront-guided correction solution that
addresses the vision problems associated with the higher order
aberrations of the eye.
www.opticsinmotion.net
Long Beach,
CA
Optikos
www.optikos.com/
Wakefield,
MA
Optikos Corporation is a manufacturer of equipment for the
measurement of optical image quality and a leading provider
of optical engineering and product development services.
Optikos offers complete solutions for both component and
system level tests on imaging systems operating from the
ultraviolet to the far infrared
www.optronsystems.com
Bedford, MA
Physical
Sciences,
Inc.
Andover,
MA
Pixeloptics,
Inc.
Roanoke, VI
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M
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MEMS deformable
mirrors
Fast steering mirrors for
free space optics
communication
B
I
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M
E
D
• • •
•
•
Patented adaptive
dynamic range
wavefront sensor
(ADRWFS); simulation
and modelling software
for AO. Supplier for
Boeing Airborne Laser
Airborne laser with
Lockheed Martin and
Boeing
•
Turnover £2100m, 9300 employees (Northrop Grumman Space
Technology)
Optics In Motion LLC. was founded in 2003 with the aim of
developing, manufacturing and selling innovative products for
the photonics industry. We specialize in innovative solutions for
all types of electro-optical systems.
Optron
Systems, Inc.
Applications
Optron Systems is a research and development firm specializing
in the creation of active VLSI-MEMS membrane mirror light
modulators (VLSI-MMLM), with applications in adaptive optics
and optical projection systems in multiple frequency bands.
www.psicorp.com
Founded in 1973, Physical Sciences Inc. focuses on providing
contract research and development services in a variety of
technical areas to both government and commercial
customers. Interests range from basic research to technology
development, with an emphasis on applied research.
Turnover £26m
www.pixeloptics.com/
PixelOptics was founded in 2005 as the world’s first composite
lens company. Our unique and proprietary approach to lens
design combines sound lens design principles and well-known,
proven lens materials to create entirely new categories of
eyeglass lenses.
•
Binocular wavefront
aberrrometer
Fast steering mirrors
Wavepro wavefront
sensor, optical
metrology
•
•
• • •
• •
hybrid VLSI-MEMS
membrane mirror light
modulators
Tracking scanning laser
ophthalmoscope
•
Electro-active lens
technology: dynamic
lenses with changeable
focus
•
87
Organisati
on
Description
Technologies
A
S
T
R
O
N
United States
SBIG
Santa
Barbara, CA
SciMeasure
Analytical
Systems, Inc.
Decatur, GA
Stellar
Products
San Diego,
CA
The Optical
Sciences
Company
Anaheim,
CA
Trex
Enterprises,
Corp.
San Diego,
CA
Umachines,
Inc.
Altadena,
CA
Xinetics
Devens, MA
Applications
www.sbig.com
Santa Barbara Instrument Group. Goal is to design and
manufacture the best astronomical instrumentation in the
world, at a price an amateur can afford
www.scimeasure.com
Founded as a consulting business in 1981, incorporated in 1989.
Developing a video mixer and morphometry software for an
Apple II computer in 1981, SciMeasure was one of the first
companies to develop imaging systems for the IBM PC. Since
then, SciMeasure has become more specialized in the field of
low noise CCD cameras.
www.stellarproducts.com
Founded in 1992 by Chief Scientist, Dr. Donald G. Bruns, in
Colorado Springs, Colorado. Moved to San Diego in 1994.
Stellar Products was the first company to manufacture standard
adaptive optics systems to both amateur and professional
astronomers.
www.tosc.com
The Optical Sciences Company performs work in the general
area of theoretical and experimental military electro-optics.
Offers Adaptive Optics Toolbox as MATLAB add-on.
www.trexenterprises.com
Established in 1978 as Western Research Corporation in San
Diego, California. From 1988 until 2000 were part of Thermo
Electron Corporation. In 2000, employees bought ThermoTrex’s
R&D division and became Trex Enterprises Corporation. Today
is a privately-held company
200 Employees
www.umachines.com
In 1997 a group of Caltech and UCLA engineers formed United
Micromachines to develop and market commercial
applications for MEMS-based technologies. The company
secured contracts to develop devices for clients such as the US
Navy and NASA. In 1999 the founders began to investigate
other applications for MEMS devices and formed Umachines to
pursue opportunities within the optical networking field.
www.st.northropgrumman.com/xinetics
Part of Northrop Grumman Space Technology. Xinetics was
founded in 1993 to preserve critical defence-related active
materials technologies and develop them into commercial
precision motion-control products. Xinetics started in Littleton,
Massachusetts at a single 2,500 square foot facility. The
company now occupies five buildings with a total of 90,000
square feet in Devens, Massachusetts.
Adaptive optics
systems for CCD
cameras for amateur
astronomy
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S
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High speed, low-noise
CCD controller
•
Adaptive optics
systems for amateur
astronomy, to provide
image stabilisation, and
correction of defocus
and astigmatism.
•
Adaptive optics
systems analysis, real
time control. MATLAB
Adaptive Optics
Toolbox
•
•
•
AO systems;
Segmented adaptive
mirrors
•
•
•
Optical switches, MEMS
mirrors
•
•
•
Deformable mirrors,
closed loop wavefront
control systems with
integrated dedicated
tilt control loops
•
•
88
Photonics
Knowledge Transfer Network
UK ADAPTIVE OPTICS MARKET AND
SUPPLY CHAIN STUDY
A REPORT FOR THE STFC UK ASTRONOMY TECHNOLOGY CENTRE
© Photonics KTN Geddes House • Kirkton North • Livingston • EH54 6GU T +44 1506 497228 E info@photonicsKTN.org www.photonicsKTN.org
EMES CONSULTING LTD, 2009
FOR THE PHOTONICS KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER NETWORK