Conclusion

Adaptive optics is a mature technology based on a wide range of commercially available components. Thanks to the availability of increasingly high-performance matrix detectors, wavefront analyzer concepts are available for a wide range of applications. Similarly, the various wavefront corrector technologies available on the market can meet most needs.

By making it possible to achieve the ultimate in spatial resolution (the diffraction limit), adaptive optics has become an essential component of large-scale scientific instruments-astronomy telescopes or power laser chains. The future challenges for these applications today lie in the development of complex components such as large deformable mirrors for ELTs, which should remain exceptional instruments, but also in increasingly sophisticated concepts designed to extend the field of use of this technology....