Related papers: Active shape correction of a thin glass/plastic X-…
Optics for future X-ray telescopes will be characterized by very large aperture and focal length, and will be made of lightweight materials like glass or silicon in order to keep the total mass within acceptable limits. Optical modules…
The need for both high quality images and lightweight structures is one of the main drivers in space telescope design. An efficient wavefront control system will become mandatory in future large observatories, retaining performance while…
The advent of extremely large telescopes will bring unprecedented light-collecting power and spatial resolution, but it will also lead to a significant increase in the size and complexity of focal-plane instruments. The use of freeform…
X-ray mirrors with high focusing performances are in use in both mirror modules for X-ray telescopes and in synchrotron and FEL (Free Electron Laser) beamlines. A degradation of the focus sharpness arises in general from geometrical…
In the development of space-based large telescope systems, having the capability to perform active optics correction allows correcting wavefront aberrations caused by thermal perturbations so as to achieve diffraction-limited performance…
We present a method for the production of segmented optics. It is a novel processing developed at INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera (INAF-OAB) employing commercial of-the-shelf materials. It is based on the shaping of thin glass foils…
We present a method for the manufacturing of thin shells of glass, which appears promising for the development of active optics for future space telescopes. The method exploits the synergy of different mature technologies, while leveraging…
Active optics is defined as the control of the shape and the alignment of the components of an optical system at low temporal frequencies. For modern large telescopes with flexible monolithic or segmented primary mirrors and also flexible…
Optical beams and starlight distorted by atmospheric turbulence can be corrected with adaptive optics systems to enable efficient coupling into single-mode fibers. Deformable mirrors, used to flatten the wavefront in astronomical…
Adaptive optics (AO) offers an opportunity to stabilize an image and maximize the spatial resolution achievable by ground based telescopes by removing the distortions due to the atmosphere. Typically, the deformable mirror in an AO system…
Thin slumped glass foils are considered good candidates for the realization of future X-ray telescopes with large effective area and high spatial resolution. However, the hot slumping process affects the glass strength, and this can be an…
The latest high-performance telescopes for deep space observation employ very large primary mirrors that are made of smaller segments, like the JWST which employs monolithic beryllium hexagonal segments. A very promising development stage…
Sensitivity and resolution of space telescopes are directly related to the size of the primary mirror. Enabling such future extremely large space telescopes or even arrays of those will require to drastically reduce the areal weight of the…
Carbon fibre composite technology for lightweight mirrors is gaining increasing interest in the space- and ground-based astronomical communities for its low weight, ease of manufacturing, excellent thermal qualities and robustness. We…
The current generation of ground-based coronagraphic instruments uses deformable mirrors to correct for phase errors and to improve contrast levels at small angular separations. Improving these techniques, several space and ground based…
The detectors of the laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory (LIGO) are broadly limited by the quantum noise and rely on the injection of squeezed states of light to achieve their full sensitivity. Squeezing improvement is…
This paper presents the first-principle design approach for X-ray active optics, using the simulation-modulation cycle in place of the measurement-modulation feedback loops used in traditional active optics. Hence, the new active optics…
Active optics techniques on large telescopes and astronomical instrumentations provide high imaging quality. For ground-based astronomy, the co-addition of adaptive optics again increases angular resolution up to provide diffraction-limited…
In the era of high-angular resolution astronomical instrumentation, where long and very long baseline interferometers (constituted by many, $\sim$ 20 or more, telescopes) are expected to work not only in the millimeter and submillimeter…
The surface figure of x-ray mirrors can be improved by differential deposition of thin films. To achieve the required corrections, WSi2 layers of variable thickness were deposited through beam-defining apertures of different openings. The…