Related papers: Telescope interferometers: an alternative to class…

High quality, repeatable point-spread functions are important for science cases like direct exoplanet imaging, high-precision astrometry, and high-resolution spectroscopy of exoplanets. For such demanding applications, the initial on-sky…

Exoplanet detection and characterization through extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) is a key science goal of future extremely large telescopes. This achievement, however, will be limited in sensitivity by both quasi-static wavefront errors and…

We present numerical characterizations of the wavefront sensing performance for few-mode photonic lantern wavefront sensors (PLWFSs). These characterizations include calculations of throughput, control space, sensor linearity, and an…

Current designs for all three extremely large telescopes show the overwhelming adoption of the pyramid wavefront sensor (P-WFS) as the WFS of choice for adaptive optics (AO) systems sensing on natural guide stars (NGS) or extended objects.…

The advent of spatiotemporal wave packets (STWPs), represented by spatiotemporal optical vortices (STOVs), has paved the way for the exploration in optics and photonics. To date, despite considerable efforts, a comprehensive and efficient…

The performance of future observatories such as the Extremely Large Telescope is mainly limited by atmospheric turbulence and structural vibrations of the optical assembly. To further enhance the mitigation performance of adaptive optics,…

Exoplanet direct imaging using adaptive optics (AO) is often limited by non-common path aberrations (NCPAs) and aberrations that are invisible to traditional pupil-plane wavefront sensors (WFSs). This can be remedied by focal-plane (FP)…

The Wide-Field Spectroscopic Telescope (WST) is a concept for a 12-m class seeing-limited telescope providing two concentric fields of view for simultaneous Multi-Object Spectroscopy and Integral Field Spectroscopy. The specified wavelength…

Precise alignment sensing and control are essential for maintaining the stability of laser interferometric gravitational-wave detectors. Conventional Wave Front Sensing technique (WFS), which relies on the beat between the carrier and…

The Thirty Meter Telescope will use a sophisticated adaptive optics system called NFIRAOS. This system utilizes two deformable mirrors conjugate to 0 km and 11.2 km to apply a Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO) correction over a 2…

Extreme adaptive optics (AO) is crucial for enabling the contrasts needed for ground-based high contrast imaging instruments to detect exoplanets. Pushing exoplanet imaging detection sensitivities towards lower mass, closer separations, and…

The ESA Gaia spacecraft has two Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors (WFS) on its focal plane. They are required to refocus the telescope in-orbit due to launch settings and gravity release. They require bright stars to provide good signal to…

(abridged) Extreme adaptive optics (XAO) encounters severe difficulties to cope with the high speed (>1kHz), high accuracy and high order requirements for future extremely large telescopes. An innovative high order adaptive optics system…

The advent of a new generation of Adaptive Optics systems called Wide Field AO (WFAO) mark the beginning of a new era. By using multiple Guide Stars (GSs), either Laser Guide Stars (LGSs) or Natural Guide Stars (NGSs), WFAO significantly…

The nonlinear curvature wavefront sensor (nlCWFS) uses multiple (typically four) out-of-focus images to reconstruct the phase and amplitude of a propagating light beam. Because these images are located between the pupil and focal planes,…

Real-time seeing and outer scale estimation at the location of the focus of a telescope is fundamental for the adaptive optics systems dimensioning and performance prediction, as well as for the operational aspects of instruments. This…

Many adaptive optics systems operate by measuring the distortion of the wavefront in one wavelength range and performing the scientific observations in a second, different wavelength range. One common technique is to measure wavefront…

The main objective of the present project is to explore the viability of an adaptive optics control system based exclusively on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), making strong use of their parallel processing capability. In an…

The next generation of large telescopes for direct imaging of exoplanets will require segmented primary mirrors. Over both long and short timescales, these telescopes experience segment misalignments which degrade the final science image.…

We propose a new type of Wave Front Sensor (WFS) derived from the Pyramid WFS (PWFS). This new WFS, called the Flattened Pyramid-WFS (FPWFS), has a reduced Pyramid angle in order to optically overlap the four pupil images into an unique…