Related papers: Phase masks in astronomy: From the Mach-Zehnder in…
An ideal coronagraph with a band-limited image mask can efficiently image off-axis sources while removing identically all of the light from an on-axis source. However, strict mask construction tolerances limit the utility of this technique…
A multitude of coronagraphic techniques for the space-based direct detection and characterization of exo-solar terrestrial planets are actively being pursued by the astronomical community. Typical coronagraphs have internal shaped focal…
Directly imaging Earth-sized exoplanets with a visible-light coronagraph instrument on a space telescope will require a system that can achieve $\sim10^{-10}$ raw contrast and maintain it for the duration of observations (on the order of…
Exoplanetary science is a very active field of astronomy nowadays, with questions still opened such as how planetary systems form and evolve (occurrence, process), why such a diversity of exoplanets is observed (mass, radius, orbital…
Interferometers are essential tools to measure and shape optical fields, and are widely used in optical metrology, sensing, laser physics, and quantum mechanics. They superimpose waves with a mutual phase delay, resulting in a change in…
Long-baseline interferometry at optical and near-infrared wavelengths is an emerging technology which is quickly becoming a useful tool to investigate stellar atmospheres and to compare observations with models. Stellar atmosphere models…
Detecting exoplanets and other faint sources of emitted and reflected light near a bright star requires deeply suppressing the starlight while efficiently transmitting the dim light from its surroundings. This suppression can be carried out…
Coded mask instruments have been used in high-energy astronomy for the last forty years now and designs for future hard X-ray/low gamma-ray telescopes are still based on this technique when they need to reach moderate angular resolutions…
Phase imaging techniques extract the optical path-length information of a scene, whereas wavefront sensors provide the shape of an optical wavefront. Since these two applications have different technical requirements, they have developed…
Future Extremely Large Telescopes will adopt segmented primary mirrors with several hundreds of segments. Cophasing of the segments together is essential to reach high wavefront quality. The phasing sensor must be able to maintain very high…
High contrast imaging (HCI) is fundamentally limited by wavefront aberrations, and the ability to perform wavefront sensing from focal plane images is key to reach the full potential of ground and space-based instruments. Vortex focal plane…
Significant advances in the discovery and characterization of the planetary systems of nearby stars can be accomplished with a moderate aperture high performance coronagraphic space mission that could be started in the next decade. Its…
Diluted arrays of many optical apertures will be able to provide h igh-resolution snapshot images if the beams are combined according to the densified-pupil scheme. We show that the same principle can also provide coronagraphic images, for…
Phase masks coronagraphs can be seen as linear systems that spatially redistribute, in the pupil plane, the energy collected by the telescope. Most of the on-axis light must ideally be rejected outside the aperture to be blocked with a Lyot…
We present an enhanced version of the Zernike wavefront sensor, that simultaneously measures phase and amplitude aberrations. The 'vector-Zernike' wavefront sensor consists of a patterned liquid-crystal mask, which imposes $\pm \pi/2$ phase…
This paper introduces a two-and multi-level phase mask design for improved depth of focus. A novel technique is proposed incorporating cubic and generalized cubic wavefront coding (WFC). The obtained system is optical-electronic requiring…
We present the concept of a binary shaped mask coronagraph applicable to a telescope pupil including obscuration, based on previous works on binary shaped pupil mask by \citet{Kasdin2005} and \citet{Vanderbei1999}. Solutions with…
We describe the coronagraphic upgrade underway for the Mid-Infrared Array Camera-5 (MIRAC-5) to be used with the 6.5-m MMT telescope utilizing the new MMT Adaptive optics exoPlanet characterization System (MAPS). Mid-IR ground-based…
Wavefront sensing in solar adaptive-optics is currently done with correlating Shack-Hartmann sensors, although the spatial- and temporal-resolutions of the phase measurements are then limited by the extremely fast computing required to…
Over the past two decades, thousands of confirmed exoplanets have been detected. The next major challenge is to characterize these other worlds and their stellar systems. Much information on the composition and formation of exoplanets and…