Related papers: Astro2020: Astrophotonics White Paper
Forecasting optical turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere has been an ambitious challenge for the astronomical scientific community for several decades. While earlier research primarily focused on whether it was possible to predict optical…
Advances in the field of plasmonics, that is, nanophotonics based on optical properties of metal nanostructures, paved the way for the development of ultrasensitive biological sensors and other devices whose operating principles are based…
Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) will be NASA's flagship space telescope of the 2040s, designed to search for life on other planets and to transform broad areas of astrophysics. NASA are seeking international partners, and the UK is…
Photonic metasurfaces are ultrathin electromagnetic wave-molding metamaterials providing the missing link for the integration of nanophotonic chips with nanoelectronic circuits. An extra twist in this field originates from spin-optical…
Most domains of science are experiencing a paradigm shift due to the advent of a new generation of instruments and detectors which produce data and data streams at an unprecedented rate. The scientific exploitation of these data, namely…
Using photonic devices, we developed a new approach to traditional spectroscopy where the spectral cross-correlation with a template spectrum can be done entirely on-device. By creating photonic devices with a carefully designed, modulated…
In our epoch, images are a powerful way to convey a message to a large audience. Through the use of amazing astronomical photographs, science can be communicated effectively at different levels, to a very diverse audience of all ages. In…
The scientific ambitions of the 2040s will require large, interdisciplinary teams operating across continents, institutions, and increasingly heterogeneous political and funding landscapes. While significant effort is devoted to advancing…
Technosignatures refer to observational manifestations of technology that could be detected through astronomical means. Most previous searches for technosignatures have focused on searches for radio signals, but many current and future…
Astronomy, as many other scientific disciplines, is facing a true data deluge which is bound to change both the praxis and the methodology of every day research work. The emerging field of astroinformatics, while on the one end appears…
The white paper discusses Arecibo Observatory's plan for facility improvements and activities over the next decade. The facility improvements include: (a) improving the telescope surface, pointing and focusing to achieve superb performance…
The next decade will be an exciting period for solar astrophysics, as new ground- and space-based instrumentation will provide unprecedented observations of the solar atmosphere and heliosphere. The synergy between modeling effort and…
A new generation of telescopes with mirror diameters of 20 m or more, called extremely large telescopes (ELTs) has the potential to provide unprecedented imaging and spectroscopy of exo-planetary systems, if the difficulties in achieving…
Photonic lanterns are an important enabling technology for astrophotonics with a wide range of potential applications including fibre Bragg grating OH suppression, integrated photonic spectrographs and fibre scramblers for high resolution…
The research area of plasmonics promises devices with ultrasmall footprint operating at ultrafast speeds and with lower energy consumption compared to conventional electronics. These devices will operate with light and bridge the gap…
Nonradiating sources of energy have traditionally been studied in quantum mechanics and astrophysics, while receiving a very little attention in the photonics community. This situation has changed recently due to a number of pioneering…
Topological photonics is emerging as a new paradigm for the development of both classical and quantum photonic architectures. What makes topological photonics remarkably intriguing is the built-in protection as well as intrinsic…
Extreme adaptive optics systems are now in operation across the globe. These systems, capable of high order wavefront correction, deliver Strehl ratios of 90% in the near-infrared. Originally intended for the direct imaging of exoplanets,…
The era of data-intensive astronomy is being ushered in with the increasing size and complexity of observational data across wavelength and time domains, the development of algorithms to extract information from this complexity, and the…
Plasmonics is a research area merging the fields of optics and nanoelectronics by confining light with relatively large free-space wavelength to the nanometer scale - thereby enabling a family of novel devices. Current plasmonic devices at…