Related papers: Small Solutions to the Large Telescope Problem: A …
An ongoing limitation of terahertz spectroscopy is that the technique is generally limited to the study of relatively large samples of order 4 mm across due to the generally large size of the focal beam spot. We present a nested concentric…
It has been seen recently that when probing a nanoscale object to determine, for example, size or position via light scattering, significant advantage in measurement precision can be gained from exploiting phase singularities in a…
The R~300-1000 grating spectra from XMM-Newton and Chandra are a radical advance, allowing spectroscopic physics techniques to be applied to X-ray astronomy, revolutionizing a wide range of research. Ten years on these spectra will be…
The Infra-Red Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) is one of the three first light instruments for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) and is the only one to directly sample the diffraction limit. The instrument consists of a parallel imager and…
The HERMES high-resolution spectrograph project aims at exploiting the specific potential of small but flexible telescopes in observational astrophysics. The optimised optical design of the spectrograph is based on the well-proven concept…
The Near-Inrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a very versatile instrument, offering multiobject and integral field spectroscopy with varying spectral resolution ($\sim$30 to $\sim$3000) over a wide…
Many focal-reducer spectrographs, currently available at state-of-the art telescopes facilities, would benefit from a simple refurbishing that could increase both the resolution and spectral range in order to cope with the progressively…
In a previous article we suggested a method to overcome the diffraction limit behind a telescope. We refer to theory and recent numerical simulations, and test whether it is indeed possible to use photon amplification to enhance the angular…
Diffraction limited 30m class telescopes will play an important role in gravitational lensing studies, coming online in approximately 2015. As imaging telescopes they will complement the ~6m JWST, probing to smaller angular scales in…
We present a technique capable of producing subwavelength focal spots in the far-field of the source in planar non-resonant structures. The approach combines the diffraction gratings that generate the high-wavevector-number modes and planar…
Compact spectrometers based on disordered planar waveguides exhibit a rather high resolution with a relatively small footprint as compared to conventional spectrometers. This is achieved by multiple scattering of light which - if properly…
We discuss the design and performance of TEXES, the Texas Echelon Cross Echelle Spectrograph. TEXES is a mid-infrared (5-25 um) spectrograph with several operating modes: high-resolution, cross-dispersed with a resolving power of R=100,000,…
The next generation of large ground-based optical and infrared telescopes will provide new challenges for designers of astronomical instrumentation. The varied science cases for these extremely large telescopes (ELTs) require a large range…
Spectroscopy is the most fundamental instruments in almost every field of modern science. Conventional spectrometer is based on the dispersion elements such as various gratings. An alternative way is based on the filters such as…
Capturing high resolution imagery of the Earth's surface often calls for a telescope of considerable size, even from Low Earth Orbits (LEO). A large aperture often requires large and expensive platforms. For instance, achieving a resolution…
Grisms are dispersive transmission optics that find their most frequent use in instruments that combine imaging and spectroscopy. This application is particularly popular in the infrared where imagers frequently have a cold pupil in their…
Gravitational lensing is generally treated in the geometric optics limit; however, when the wavelength of the radiation approaches or exceeds the Schwarzschild radius of the lens, diffraction becomes important. Although the magnification…
(Abridged) Typically large telescope construction and operation costs scale up faster than their collecting area. This slows scientific progress, making it expensive and complicated to increase telescope size. A metric that represents the…
This paper describes outstanding issues in astrophysics and cosmology that can be solved by astronomical observations in a broad spectral range from far infrared to millimeter wavelengths. The discussed problems related to the formation of…
We present a design for a wide-field spectroscopic telescope. The only large powered mirror is spherical, the resulting spherical aberration is corrected for each target separately, giving exceptional image quality. The telescope is a…