The Deformable Phase Plate
Phaseform's patented approach to adaptive optics: transmissive, continuous-sheet wavefront modulation at high spatial frequency, in a remarkably compact footprint.
A fluid chamber, a thin membrane, an electrode array
The DPP is composed of a fluidic chamber, enclosed by a thin membrane, which is deformed by electrostatic force. The force is generated by a 2D array of transparent electrodes embedded within the optical aperture — the animation shows how the membrane shapes the transmitted wavefront.
What the DPP is
Transmissive
DPP technology enables new types of continuous-surface wavefront modulators, which can be inserted into any optical beam path without beam-folding optics.
Compact
The DPP enables exceptionally small footprint devices and completely new adaptive optics system designs.
High resolution
The DPP's high-density electrostatic actuator array within the optical aperture allows correction of Zernike modes through the 7th radial order, with amplitudes of multiple wavelengths in the visible range.
Scalable
The DPP is created using MEMS microfabrication, precision assembly and optofluidic encapsulation methods, all of which scale to wafer-level production.
Adaptive optics in transmission
Conventional adaptive optics relies on reflective elements — deformable mirrors, or liquid-crystal spatial light modulators — and the folded beam paths they require. The DPP works in transmission: it sits directly in the optical path, like any other lens element, with no beam folding, no 4f relays and no bulky optomechanics. That turns adaptive optics from a system architecture into a component decision: an existing instrument can be upgraded in the space a filter or a window already occupies, without redesigning the beam path around it.
More than focus
A focus actuator moves one thing: the focal plane. Every real optical system also carries errors that survive perfect focus — spherical aberration from a cover glass or a mismatched immersion medium, astigmatism from a stressed or tilted element, coma from a decentred one, trefoil from a three-point mount or from the sample’s own structure. Refocusing cannot touch any of them.
The DPP works on the shape of the wavefront instead: 63 transparent electrodes inside the clear aperture drive the membrane with 63 independent degrees of freedom, reproducing Zernike modes through the 7th radial order — 35 modes, measured interferometrically in open loop. Each one is an optical error the system can take out electronically, after assembly and during operation. Defocus is one of the 35, with 3.8 µm peak-to-valley of stroke on the 10 mm aperture: enough to take out a focus error, alongside the 34 modes a focus actuator leaves behind.
The 35 Zernike modes of a Delta 7-10, measured interferometrically in open loop. Rows are radial order n.
OEM customization
Development and integration support (hardware + software) for customer-specific applications. Let us build a customized DPP product based on your requirements to realize your vision of a novel way to apply adaptive optics.
The DPP as a component, a system and software
A walk through the whole picture: the phase plate itself, the modules built around it, the software that drives them, and measured results from customer instruments.
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