Liquid crystal technology for adaptive optics

The ability to attain the highest possible resolution with any optical imaging system depends on maintaining the quality of the wavefront entering and passing through the system. Wavefront degradation can arise from errors in optical design and manufacture, random aberrators like the Earth's atmosphere, and the structure supporting the imaging system (this last contributor is especially troublesome for space-based systems). In the last two decades technology has been developed and tested to remove, in real-time, the effect of aberrators. This technology is commonly known as Adaptive Optics (AO). However, AO is expensive and very complicated. In an effort to reduce complexity and costs, alternative technologies are under study at various institutions. In this paper I will present the status of our effort in using liquid crystal devices as corrective elements for AO applications.