Founder Dr. Frédéric Rooms Area served worldwide | Headquarters Montbonnot, France | |
Industry Deformable mirrorAdaptive Optics Products Deformable mirror and adaptive optics systems | ||
ALPAO is a company which manufactures a range of adaptive optics products for use in research and industry, including deformable mirrors with large strokes, wavefront sensors, and adaptive optics loops. These products are designed for astronomy, vision science, microscopy, wireless optical communications, and laser applications.
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History
ALPAO developed from groundwork at the Université Joseph Fourier (Grenoble) and Floralis. In 2006 and 2008 ALPAO received awards for innovative technology from the French Ministry of Research. Other ALPAO partners include the Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble, OSEO, ANR, Région Rhône-Alpes, Grenoble Alpes Incubation, the Reseau Entreprendre and Business France.
Applications
ALPAO’s deformable mirrors can be used in the following disciplines for image enhancement:
Vision science
Diagnosing illnesses of the eye may require high resolution images of the retina. Images taken using conventional instruments may be too poor in quality due to aberrations introduced by the eye itself. Adaptive optics offers a technique for restoring the image quality. In addition, adaptive optics may be used to create a vision simulator.
Astronomy
Turbulence introduced by the atmosphere degrades images taken using telescopes. Using adaptive optics recovers much of the information that is lost. As a result, it is possible to increase the number of scientific observations.
Biological imaging
AO makes possible to shift the depth of focus, while maintaining a constant distance between the objective and the observed object to do 3D microscopy through the use of sections.
Laser
Numerous laser applications benefit from adaptive optics. For example: