Adaptive optics systems are critical in any application where highly resolved imaging or beam control must be performed through a dynamic medium. Such applications include astronomy and free-space optical communications, where light propagates through the atmosphere, as well as medical microscopy and vision science, where light propagates through biological tissue. Recent works have demonstrated common-path wavefront sensors for adaptive optics using the photonic lantern, a slowly varying waveguide that can efficiently couple multi-moded light into single-mode fibers. We use the SCExAO astrophotonics platform at the 8-m Subaru Telescope to show that spectral dispersion of lantern outputs can improve correction fidelity, culminating with an on-sky demonstration of real-time wavefront control. To our best knowledge, this is the first such result for either a spectrally dispersed or a photonic lantern wavefront sensor. Combined with the benefits offered by lanterns in precision spectroscopy, our results suggest the future possibility of a unified wavefront sensing spectrograph using compact photonic devices.
@article{arxiv.2505.00765,
title = {Experimental and on-sky demonstration of spectrally dispersed wavefront sensing using a photonic lantern},
author = {Jonathan Lin and Michael P. Fitzgerald and Yinzi Xin and Yoo Jung Kim and Olivier Guyon and Barnaby Norris and Christopher Betters and Sergio Leon-Saval and Kyohoon Ahn and Vincent Deo and Julien Lozi and Sébastien Vievard and Daniel Levinstein and Steph Sallum and Nemanja Jovanovic},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.00765},
year = {2025}
}