English

Millimetre-scale spectrographs for next-generation photonic instrumentation

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics 2026-07-16 v1 Optics

Abstract

We present a set of ultra-compact spectrographs fabricated using two-photon polymerisation, each under 1 mm in length and printed directly onto an optical fiber. This fully integrated, alignment-free architecture enables extremely low-mass instrumentation with broad potential across astrophotonics, space systems, drone-based sensing, and quantum optics. Two transmissive configurations are presented; they combine beam-expansion optics, dispersive elements, and stray-light suppression within monolithic printed structures optimised for J- and H-band operation. Coarse gratings provide resolving powers of approximately R = 30. Experimental characterisation confirms the feasibility of fiber-coupled, fully printed spectrographs and demonstrates their promise as deployable components for next-generation integrated photonic instrumentation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.14841,
  title  = {Millimetre-scale spectrographs for next-generation photonic instrumentation},
  author = {Emily Ronson and Robert J. Harris and Ariadna Calcines Rosario and Viktoria Kutnohorsky},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.14841},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

8 pages, 8 figures, SPIE proceedings