Related papers: Prototyping liquid-crystal coronagraphs for exo-Ea…
Deep sub-diffraction exoplanet discovery currently lies beyond the reach of state-of-the-art direct imaging coronagraphs, which typically have an inner working angle larger than the diffraction scale. We present an experimental…
For future space infrared astronomical coronagraphy, we perform experimental studies on the application of aluminum mirrors to a coronagraph. Cooled reflective optics is required for broad-band mid-infrared observations in space, while…
Imaging exo-Earths is an exciting but challenging task because of the 10^-10 contrast ratio between these planets and their host star at separations narrower than 100 mas. Large segmented aperture space telescopes enable the sensitivity…
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…
The Coronagraphic Debris Exoplanet Exploring Payload (CDEEP) is a Small-Sat mission concept for high contrast imaging of circumstellar disks. CDEEP is designed to observe disks in scattered light at visible wavelengths at a raw contrast…
Coronagraphy is a powerful technique to achieve high contrast imaging and hence to image faint companions around bright targets. Various concepts have been used in the visible and near-infrared regimes, while coronagraphic applications in…
In recent years, new coronagraphic schemes have been proposed, the most promising being the optical vortex phase mask coronagraphs. In our work, a new scheme of broadband optical scalar vortex coronagraph is proposed and characterized…
A coronagraphic starlight suppression system situated on a future flagship space observatory offers a promising avenue to image Earth-like exoplanets and search for biomarkers in their atmospheric spectra. One NASA mission concept that…
Existing Electric Field Conjugation (EFC) methods are not suited for treating small polarization effects, referred to here as cross polarization. EFC utilizes a deformable mirror (DM) to nullify the electric fields from the host star within…
Imaging rocky planets in reflected light, a key focus of future NASA missions and ELTs, requires advanced wavefront control to maintain a deep, temporally correlated null of stellar halo at just several diffraction beam widths. We discuss…
We present the results of the first laboratory experiment of checkerboard shaped pupil binary mask coronagraphs using visible light, in the context of the R&D activities for future mid-infrared space missions such as the 3.5 m SPICA…
We present methods for optimizing pupil and focal plane optical elements that improve the performance of vortex coronagraphs on telescopes with obstructed or segmented apertures. Phase-only and complex masks are designed for the entrance…
The Super-Earth Explorer is an Off-Axis Space Telescope (SEE-COAST) designed for high contrast imaging. Its scientific objective is to make the physico-chemical characterization of exoplanets possibly down to 2 Earth radii >. For that…
The mission EXCEDE (EXoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer), selected by NASA for technology development, is designed to study the formation, evolution and architectures of exoplanetary systems and characterize…
For the technology development of the mission EXCEDE (EXoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer) - a 0.7 m telescope equipped with a Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization Coronagraph (PIAA-C) and a 2000-element MEMS deformable…
Directly imaging extrasolar planets using a monolithic optical telescope avoids many pitfalls of space interferometry and opens up the prospect of visible light studies of extrasolar planetary systems. Future astronomical missions may…
Directly imaging Earth-like exoplanets (``exoEarths'') with a coronagraph instrument on a space telescope requires a stable wavefront with optical path differences limited to tens of picometers RMS during exposure times of a few hours.…
High-contrast imaging for the detection and characterization of exoplanets relies on the instrument's capability to block out the light of the host star. Some current post-processing methods for calibrating out the residual speckles use…
Direct detection of exoplanets requires high dynamic range imaging. Coronagraphs could be the solution, but their performance in space is limited by wavefront errors (manufacturing errors on optics, temperature variations, etc.), which…
Direct imaging of exoplanets represents a challenge for astronomical instrumentation due to the high-contrast ratio and small angular separation between the host star and the faint planet. Multi-star systems pose additional challenges for…