Digital binary mems wavefront control

An optical control device, comprising:

• a first diffractive, input wavefront divider/combiner (G1) disposed along an optical axis of an input wavefront;
• a first component diffractive wavefront divider/combiner (G2) disposed to optically intercept one of a positive and a negative nth-order output beam from the input wavefront divider/combiner;
• a first component binary MEMS device M1 comprising an (nx,y×mx,y)M1 mirror array disposed optically downstream of the first beam divider/combiner component along an M1 optical path, wherein an at least one mirror sub array (X×Y)M1 is in a selected ON/OFF state that provides a two level half-tone phase value expressed as H(x,y), where 0≦H≦1;
• a second component diffractive wavefront divider/combiner (G3) disposed to optically intercept one of a complementary negative and a positive nth-order output beam from the input wavefront divider/combiner;
• a second component binary MEMS device M2 comprising an (nx,y×mx,y)M2 mirror array disposed optically downstream of the second beam divider/combiner component along an M2 optical path, wherein an at least one mirror sub array (X×Y)M2 is in a selected complementary OFF/ON state that provides a two-level half-tone phase value expressed as (1−H(x,y)), where 0≦(1−H)≦1;
• and
• at least one optical component that in-couples the input wavefront and out-couples an output wavefront having a controlled phase that is different than the input wavefront phase.

An optical control device, comprising:

• a first diffractive, input wavefront divider/combiner (G1) disposed along an optical axis of an input wavefront;
• a first component binary MEMS device M1 comprising an (nx,y×mx,y)M1 mirror array disposed along an M1 optical path to intercept a zero-order output beam from the input wavefront divider/combiner, wherein an at least one mirror sub array (X×Y)M1 is in a selected ON/OFF state that provides a three level half-tone phase value expressed in terms of H(x,y), where H(x,y)=(0, ½, 1);
• a first component diffractive wavefront divider/combiner (G2) disposed to optically intercept one of a positive and a negative nth-order output beam from the first input wavefront divider/combiner;
• a second component binary MEMS device M2 comprising an (nx,y×mx,y)M2 mirror array disposed optically downstream of the first beam divider/combiner component along an M2 optical path, wherein an at least one mirror sub array (X×Y)M2 is in a selected ON/OFF state that provides a three-level half-tone phase value expressed in terms of H(x,y), where H(x,y)=(0, ½, 1);
• a second component diffractive wavefront divider/combiner (G3) disposed to optically intercept one of a complementary negative and a positive nth-order output beam from the first input wavefront divider/combiner;
• a second component binary MEMS device M3 comprising an (nx,y×mx,y)M3 mirror array disposed optically downstream of the second beam divider/combiner component along an M3 optical path, wherein an at least one mirror sub array (X×Y)M3 is in a selected OFF/ON state that provides a three-level half-tone phase value expressed in terms of H(x,y), where H(x,y)=(0, ½, 1);
• and
• at least one optical component that in-couples the input wavefront and out-couples an output wavefront having a controlled, arbitrary phase that is different than the input wavefront phase.

A method for controlling an optical wavefront WF, comprising:

• providing a first controllable binary MEMS device M11 comprising an (nx,y×mx,y)M1 mirror array, wherein each mirror can be set only to a binary ON/OFF position, and a second controllable binary MEMS device M21 comprising an (nx,y×mx,y)M2 mirror array, wherein each mirror can be set only to a binary ON/OFF position;
• providing an incident optical wavefront WF1i;
• splitting the incident optical wavefront into WF11 along a first optical path L11 to M11 and into WF21 along a second optical path L21 to M21;
• modulating WF11 reflected from M11 by setting at least one sub-array (Xx,y×Yx,y)M1 to an ON position and modulating WF21 reflected from M21 by setting a complementary at least one sub-array (Xx,y×Yx,y)M2 to an OFF position;
• providing an optical path length difference ΔL1L2 in a range 0<ΔL1L2≦(2n+1)λ/2, where n=0, 1, 3, . . . , so as to provide a phase shift ≦π radians;
• and
• obtaining a desired output optical wavefront WF1o by optically combining reflected wavefront WF11 and reflected wavefront WF21.

An optical control device, comprising:

• a beam divider/combiner disposed along an input optical path of an incident optical wavefront;
• a first binary MEMS device M1 comprising an (nx,y×mx,y)M1 mirror array disposed optically downstream of the first component beam divider/combiner along an M1 optical path providing an M1out wavefront, wherein an at least one mirror sub array (X×Y)M1 is in an ON/OFF state that provides a half-tone phase value expressed as (1−H(x,y)), wherein H(x,y) represents a two-level value equal to 0 or 1;
• a second binary MEMS device M2 comprising an (nx,y×mx,y)M2 mirror array disposed optically downstream of the beam divider/combiner along an M2 optical path providing an M2out wavefront, wherein a complementary an at least one mirror sub array (X×Y)M2 is in an OFF/ON state that provides a half-tone phase value expressed as H(x,y);
• and
• phase retarder means for providing a controlled phase difference between the M1out wavefront and the M2out wavefront, further wherein a resultant output wavefront obtained from the interference of the M1out wavefront and the M1out wavefront has a phase that is different than the input optical wavefront phase by an amount αH(x,y) where −π≦α≦π radians.

A method for generating a controlled output wavefront from a given input wavefront, comprising the steps of:

• providing an interferometer including a plurality of controllable binary MEMS devices M(n) each including an (n×m)M(n) mirror array, wherein each array mirror can be set only to a binary ON/OFF position;
• controlling at least one sub array (X×Y)M(n)<(n×m)M(n) of each mirror array according to an at least two-level half-toning algorithm describing a phase value denoted by a half-toned picture H(x,y) where H(x,y) is a two-dimensional array;
• providing an optical phase delay between at least two of the plurality of beams corresponding to the plurality of binary MEMS devices;
• and
• optically combining the plurality of beams to generate the controlled output wavefront.