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SUMMARY:Blue Phase Liquid Crystals & Their Potential for Astronomy - Oana 
 Niculescu (University of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20240514T101500Z
DTEND:20240514T110000Z
UID:TALK215869@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Charles Walker
DESCRIPTION:Adaptive optics is a technique used to reduce the effects of a
 berration on wavefront propagation\, used to correct for the light distort
 ion which appears due to atmospheric turbulence. Customarily\, in astronom
 y\, systems employed for this purpose use deformable or adaptive mirrors a
 s correctors\, which are costly and mechanically actuated.\n\nAs opposed t
 o a classic deformable mirror\, which requires actuators to change its sha
 pe\, a Liquid Crystal Wavefront Corrector (LCWFC) uses its inherent birefr
 ingence to act as a phase modulator and correct the incoming wavefront. De
 spite its reduced size and cost\, LCWFCs have historically suffered from a
  large response time\, which makes them less desirable over typical soluti
 ons.\n\nBlue Phases will be introduced as an alternative correcting medium
 . They have the potential to overcome the usual limitations of liquid crys
 tal devices. Their working principle and typical design considerations wil
 l be presented\, as well as progress made in making these devices a realit
 y.
LOCATION:Coffee area\, Battcock Centre
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