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Context. High contrast imaging has thoroughly combed through the limited search space accessible with first-generation ground-based adaptive optics instruments and the Hubble Space Telescope. Only a few objects were discovered, and many…
Coronagraphs of the apodized pupil and shaped pupil varieties use the Fraunhofer diffraction properties of amplitude masks to create regions of high contrast in the vicinity of a target star. Here we present a hybrid coronagraph…
One of two approaches to implementing NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder is to build a space telescope that utilizes the techniques of coronagraphy and apodization to suppress diffraction and image exo-planets. We present a method for…
Searching for nearby exoplanets with direct imaging is one of the major scientific drivers for both space and ground-based programs. While the second generation of dedicated high-contrast instruments on 8-m class telescopes is about to…
We present designs for fully achromatic vector Apodizing Phase Plate (vAPP) coronagraphs, that implement low polarization leakage solutions and achromatic beam-splitting, enabling observations in broadband filters. The vAPP is a pupil plane…
The Santa Cruz Extreme AO Lab (SEAL) testbed is an optical bench meant to design and develop new wavefront control techniques for high-contrast imaging for segmented telescopes. These techniques allow for astronomical efficiency in…
Over the last decade, the vector-apodizing phase plate (vAPP) coronagraph has been developed from concept to on-sky application in many high-contrast imaging systems on 8-m class telescopes. The vAPP is an geometric-phase patterned…
A high contrast imaging technique based on an optical vortex coronagraph (OVC) is used to measure the spatial phase profile induced by an air plasma generated by a femtosecond laser pulse. The sensitivity of the OVC method significantly…
Accurate astrometry and photometry of saturated and coronagraphic point spread functions (PSFs) are fundamental to both ground- and space-based high contrast imaging projects. For ground-based adaptive optics imaging, differential…
The properties of metal thin films have been largely overlooked in discussions of the technical limitations and problems that arise in the field of direct detection of exoplanets. Here, polarization properties and anisotropy properties of…
The Optimal Optical CoronagraphWorkshop at the Lorentz Center in September 2017 in Leiden, the Netherlands gathered a diverse group of 25 researchers working on exoplanet instrumentation to stimulate the emergence and sharing of new ideas.…
The continual push to directly image exoplanets at lower masses and closer separations orbiting around bright stars remains limited by both quasi-static and residual adaptive optics (AO) aberration. In previous papers we have proposed a…
We report on the performance of a vector apodizing phase plate coronagraph that operates over a wavelength range of $2-5 \mu$m and is installed in MagAO/Clio2 at the 6.5 m Magellan Clay telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. The…
Coronagraphy is a powerful technique to achieve high contrast imaging and hence to image faint companions around bright targets. Various concepts have been used in the visible and near-infrared regimes, while coronagraphic applications in…
Telescope pupil fragmentation from spiders generates specific aberrations observed at various telescopes and expected on the large telescopes under construction. This so-called island effect induces differential pistons, tips and tilts on…
The architecture of exoplanetary systems is relatively well known inward to 1 AU thanks to indirect techniques, which have allowed characterization of thousands of exoplanet orbits, masses and sometimes radii. The next step is the…
Coronagraph designs which use photonic integrated circuits have the highest theoretical throughput for off-axis signals, and therefore the highest potential exoplanet yield for future high-contrast direct imaging campaigns. Using the…
Using 2 aspheric mirrors, it is possible to apodize a telescope beam without losing light or angular resolution: the output beam is produced by ``remapping'' the entrance beam to produce the desired light intensity distribution in a new…
Future space telescopes with coronagraph instruments will use a wavefront sensor (WFS) to measure and correct for phase errors and stabilize the stellar intensity in high-contrast images. The HabEx and LUVOIR mission concepts baseline a…
Properly apodized pupils can deliver point spread functions (PSFs) free of Airy rings, and are suitable for high dynamical range imaging of extrasolar terrestrial planets (ETPs). To reach this goal, classical pupil apodization (CPA)…