Influence of elastic deformation on the residual ellipticity of polished optical materials

Abstract

The elastic deformation of thin mirrors is widely used in systems of adaptive optics, however, there are no data upon investigations of influence of elastic deformations on parameters of reflected polarised light in the literature. Using the method of ellipsometry, the influence of elastic deformation on the residual ellipticity of polished samples made of optical materials was studied. The results obtained during the researches have shown that the application of elastic deformations leads to essential changes of the minimum ellipticity tgp of polished samples, which testifies to the necessity to take into account this circumstance for devices of adaptive optics, input windows, cryostats and other optical parts working with the changing temperature.