20090002796 | Electrostatic snap-down prevention for membrane deformable mirrors - Voltage-controlled electrostatically actuated membrane deformable mirrors suffer from the potential for excessive voltage to induce an electrostatic snap-down event in which the electrostatic force exceeds the mechanical restoring force of the membrane and the membrane surface collapses onto the electrostatic actuators. We present here low-cost solutions to this problem involving two types of mechanical stand-offs integrated with an electrostatic pad array. | 01-01-2009 |