FABRICATION AND TESTING OF LARGE STEERING MIRRORS FOR A SCANNING LIDAR

Large, inexpensive scanning mirrors for a lidar have been designed and built out of common float glass mirrors and aluminum honeycomb. The f latness of the scanning mirrors has been characterized with a modified Foucault knife-edge test. The peak-to-peak surface slope error over t he entire surface of the mirrors was found to be less than 1 mrad, wit h slope errors of 0.15 mrad over small areas. This performance was suf ficient for use of the mirrors in a scanning CO2 lidar system that use s direct detection.