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With the ever-growing number of exoplanets detected, the issue of characterization is becoming more and more relevant. Direct imaging is certainly the most efficient but the most challenging tool to probe the atmosphere of exoplanets and…
Transmission spectroscopy facilitates the detection of molecules and/or clouds in the atmospheres of exoplanets. Such studies rely heavily on space-based or large ground-based observatories, as one needs to perform time- resolved, high…
Measuring the diffuse, highly-ionized baryonic content in galactic halos and the intergalactic medium through soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy of active galactic nuclei is a main scientific objective of the Lynx X-ray Observatory mission…
The next generation ground-based extremely large telescopes (ELTs) present incredible opportunities to discover and characterize diverse planetary systems, even potentially habitable worlds. Adaptive-optics assisted thermal-IR (3-14 micron)…
The space mission CoRoT provides us with a large amount of high-duty cycle long-duration observations. Mode fitting has proven to be efficient for the complete and detailed analysis of the oscillation pattern, but remains time consuming.…
We present the design and characterization of waveguide grating devices that couple visible-wavelength light at $\lambda=674$ nm from single-mode, high index-contrast dielectric waveguides to free-space beams forming micron-scale…
Thermal sensing with fine spatial resolution is important to the study of many scientific areas. While modern microscopy systems allow easy optical detection at high spatial resolution, their intrinsic functions are mainly focused on…
In this article we review the astrophysical application of gravitational microlensing. After introducing the history of gravitational lensing, we present the key equations and concept of microlensing. The most frequent microlensing events…
A modified version of the folded aplanatic Gregory telescope equipped with a spherical two-lens corrector is proposed for observations requiring a high signal-to-noise ratio. The basic telescope model has an aperture of 400 mm (f/3.0), its…
The Gravity Probe B (GP-B) satellite experiment will measure the precession of on-board gyroscopes to extraordinary accuracy. Such precessions are predicted by General Relativity (GR), and one component of this precession is the…
Optical tweezers equipped with position detection allow for application of piconewton-scale forces and high-temporal-resolution measurements of nanometer-scale motion. While typically used for trapping microscopic objects, the optical…
The Gas Pixel Detector (GPD) is a new generation device which, thanks to its 50 um pixels, is capable of imaging the photoelectrons tracks produced by photoelectric absorption in a gas. Since the direction of emission of the photoelectrons…
Intensity interferometry -- the correlation of spatially separated light intensities -- has historically been an important tool for precision optical astronomical observations. However, due to the extremely narrow field of view, its scope…
The detection and characterisation of other "Earths", orbiting other suns, is a bold objective of present-day astrophysics. However, this quest is severely challenged by astrophysical "noise" from the host stars, whose signatures distort…
Photonic lanterns (PLs) are tapered waveguides that gradually transition from a multi-mode fiber geometry to a bundle of single-mode fibers. In astronomical applications, PLs can efficiently couple multi-mode telescope light into a…
Optical interferometry provides us with a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of stellar structure and evolution. Through direct observation of rotationally distorted photospheres at sub-milliarcsecond scales, we are now able to…
This work presents a novel pipeline to recover the 3D structure of an unknown target spacecraft from a sequence of images captured during Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO) in space. The target's geometry and appearance are…
Two-dimensional (2D) diffraction gratings offer a polarization-independent coupling solution between the planar photonic chips and optical fibers, with advantages including placement flexibility, ease of fabrication, and tolerance to…
The $PT$-symmetric optical grating with index profile $e^{i\beta z}$ has been shown to have the interesting property of being essentially invisible for light incident from one side, while possessing greatly enhanced reflection at a…
We present a proposal of a new type of telescopes using a rotating parabolic strip as the primary mirror. It is the most principal modification of the design of telescopes from the times of Galileo and Newton. In order to demonstrate the…