Related papers: Into nonlinearity and beyond for Zernike-like wave…
Commonly used wavefront sensors, the Shack Hartmann wavefront sensor and the pyramid wavefront sensor, for example, have large dynamic range or high sensitivity, trading one regime for the other. A new type of wavefront sensor is being…
We study a mid-order wavefront sensor (MOWFS) to address fine cophasing errors in exoplanet imaging with future large segmented aperture space telescopes. Observing Earth analogs around Sun-like stars requires contrasts down to $10^{-10}$…
Several types of Wavefront Sensors (WFS) are nowadays available in the field of Adaptive Optics (AO). Generally speaking, their basic principle consists in measuring slopes or curvatures of Wavefront Errors (WFE) transmitted by a telescope,…
Extreme adaptive optics (AO) is crucial for enabling the contrasts needed for ground-based high contrast imaging instruments to detect exoplanets. Pushing exoplanet imaging detection sensitivities towards lower mass, closer separations, and…
Wavefront sensing and control (WFSC) will play a key role in improving the stability of future large segmented space telescopes while relaxing the thermo-mechanical constraints on the observatory structure. Coupled with a coronagraph to…
The effects of photon noise, aliasing, wavefront chromaticity and scintillation on the point spread function (PSF) contrast achievable with ground based adaptive optics (AO) are evaluated for different wavefront sensing schemes. I show that…
A crucial component of the high-contrast instrumental chain in astronomy is the wavefront sensor (WFS). A key property of this component is its sensitivities, which reflect its ability to efficiently use incoming photons to encode the phase…
Almost all current and future high-contrast imaging instruments will use a Pyramid wavefront sensor (PWFS) as a primary or secondary wavefront sensor. The main issue with the PWFS is its nonlinear response to large phase aberrations,…
Segmented aperture telescopes require an alignment procedure with successive steps from coarse alignment to monitoring process in order to provide very high optical quality images for stringent science operations such as exoplanet imaging.…
Adaptive optics (AO) is critical in astronomy, optical communications and remote sensing to deal with the rapid blurring caused by the Earth's turbulent atmosphere. But current AO systems are limited by their wavefront sensors, which need…
High-contrast imaging instruments need extreme wavefront control to directly image exoplanets. This requires highly sensitive wavefront sensors which optimally make use of the available photons to sense the wavefront. Here, we propose to…
We present the first on-sky segmented primary mirror closed-loop piston control using a Zernike wavefront sensor (ZWFS) installed on the Keck II telescope. Segment co-phasing errors are a primary contributor to contrast limits on Keck and…
This paper presents the basic principle and theoretical relationships of an original method allowing to retrieve the Wavefront Errors (WFE) of a ground or space-borne telescope when combining its main pupil with a second, decentered…
The use of Wavefront Sensors (WFS) is nowadays fundamental in the field of instrumental optics. This paper discusses the principle of an original and recently proposed new class of WFS. Their principle consists in evaluating the slopes of…
The ESA Gaia spacecraft has two Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors (WFS) on its focal plane. They are required to refocus the telescope in-orbit due to launch settings and gravity release. They require bright stars to provide good signal to…
Exoplanet imaging has thus far enabled studies of wide-orbit ($>$10 AU) giant planet ($>$2 Jupiter masses) formation and giant planet atmospheres, with future 30 meter-class Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) needed to image and characterize…
Strong turbulence conditions create amplitude aberrations through the effects of near-field diffraction. When integrated over long optical path lengths, amplitude aberrations (seen as scintillation) can nullify local areas in the recorded…
The upcoming extremely large telescopes will have to deal with the so-called ''pupil fragmentation'' effect: for what concerns the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the presence of thick spider legs supporting the secondary mirror may induce…
The pyramid wavefront sensor (PyWFS) has become increasingly popular to use in adaptive optics (AO) systems due to its high sensitivity. The main drawback of the PyWFS is that it is inherently nonlinear, which means that classic linear…
The James Webb Space Telescope is orders of magnitude more sensitive than any other facility across the near to mid-infrared wavelengths. Many approved programs take advantage of its highly stable point spread function (PSF) to directly…