Related papers: Interferometric apodization by homothety -- I. Opt…
This work presents the results of experimental laboratory tests on the apodization of circular and rectangular apertures using the Interferometric Apodization by Homothety (IAH) technique. The IAH approach involves splitting the amplitude…
High contrast imaging is the primary path to the direct detection and characterization of Earth-like planets around solar-type stars; a cleverly designed internal coronagraph suppresses the light from the star, revealing the elusive…
Direct imaging and spectroscopy of Earth-like planets and young Jupiters require contrasts up to 10^6-10^10 at angular separations of a few dozen milliarcseconds. To achieve this goal, one of the most promising approaches consists of using…
The detection of molecular species in the atmospheres of earth-like exoplanets orbiting nearby stars requires an optical system that suppresses starlight and maximizes the sensitivity to the weak planet signals at small angular separations.…
We propose a high-contrast coronagraph for direct imaging of young Jupiter-like planets orbiting nearby bright stars. The coronagraph employs a step-transmission filter in which the intensity is apodized with a finite number of steps of…
With a clear circular aperture, the vortex coronagraph perfectly cancels an on-axis point source and offers a 0.9 or 1.75 lambda/D inner working angle for topological charge 2 or 4, respectively. Current and near-future large telescopes are…
Current state-of-the-art high contrast imaging instruments take advantage of a number of elegant coronagraph designs to suppress starlight and image nearby faint objects, such as exoplanets and circumstellar disks. The ideal performance and…
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…
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…
The spectroscopy of faint planetary-mass companions to nearby stars is one of the main challenges that new-generation high-contrast spectro-imagers are going to face. In a previous work we presented a long slit coronagraph (LSC), for which…
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…
For direct imaging of exoplanets, a stellar coronagraph helps to remove the image of an observed bright star by attenuating the diffraction effects caused by the telescope aperture of diameter D. The Dual Zone Phase Mask (DZPM) coronagraph…
Phase apodization coronagraphs are implemented in a pupil plane to create a dark hole in the science camera focal plane. They are successfully created as "Apodizing Phase Plates" (APPs) using classical optical manufacturing, and as…
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 and characterizing Earth-like exoplanets is a tremendously difficult instrumental challenge. Present coronagraphic systems have yet to achieve the required $10^{-10}$ broadband contrast in a laboratory environment, but…
Several coronagraph designs have been proposed over the last two decades to directly image exoplanets. Among these designs, the vector vortex coronagraphs provide theoretically perfect starlight cancellation along with small inner working…
Direct imaging of exoplanets requires very high contrast levels, which are obtained using coronagraphs. But residual quasi-static aberrations create speckles in the focal plane downstream of the coronagraph which mask the planet. This…
The vortex coronagraph is one of the most promising coronagraphs for high contrast imaging because of its simplicity, small inner working angle, high throughput, and clear off-axis discovery space. However, as with most coronagraphs,…
Imaging the direct light signal from a faint exoplanet against the overwhelming glare of its host star presents one of the fundamental challenges to modern astronomical instrumentation. Achieving sufficient signal-to-noise for detection by…
High-dispersion coronagraphy (HDC) optimally combines high contrast imaging techniques such as adaptive optics/wavefront control plus coronagraphy to high spectral resolution spectroscopy. HDC is a critical pathway towards fully…