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The RISTRETTO instrument, a proposed visible high-contrast, high-resolution spectrograph for the VLT, has the primary science goal of detecting reflected light from nearby exoplanets and characterizing their atmospheres. Specifically, it…
Imaging terrestrial exoplanets around nearby stars is a formidable technical challenge, requiring the development of coronagraphs to suppress the stellar halo of diffracted light at the location of the planet. In this review, we derive the…
We describe a simple and robust approach for characterizing the shift-variant pupil aberrations of wide field-of-view microscopy systems. We derive the location-dependent pupil transfer functions by first capturing multiple intensity images…
So far, most of the about 5700 exoplanets have been discovered mainly with radial velocity and transit methods. These techniques are sensitive to planets in close orbits, not being able to probe large star--planet separations. $\mu$-lensing…
High-contrast imaging in the next decade aims to image exoplanets at smaller angular separations and deeper contrasts than ever before. A problem that has recently garnered attention for telescopes equipped with high-contrast coronagraphs…
We report an extensive numerical study and supporting experimental results on the spectral characterization of optical aberrations in macroscopic fluidic lenses with tunable focal distance and aperture shape. Using a Shack-Hartmann…
We conducted a number of multi-band coronagraph experiments using a vacuum chamber and a binary-shaped pupil mask which in principle should work at all wavelengths, in the context of the research and development on a coronagraph to observe…
The Zernike wavefront sensor (ZWFS) stands out as one of the most sensitive optical systems for measuring the phase of an incoming wavefront, reaching photon efficiencies close to the fundamental limit. This quality, combined with the fact…
The direct detection and characterization of exoplanets will be a major scientific driver over the next decade, involving the development of very large telescopes and requires high-contrast imaging close to the optical axis. Some complex…
High contrast imaging and spectroscopy provide unique constraints for exoplanet formation models as well as for planetary atmosphere models. But this can be challenging because of the planet-to-star small angular separation and high flux…
Direct imaging of exoplanet systems requires the use of coronagraphs to reach high contrast levels (10^-8 to 10^-11) at small angular separations (0.1"). However, the performance of these devices is drastically limited by aberrations (in…
Transit spectroscopy of habitable planets orbiting late-type stars requires high relative spectro-photometric accuracy between wavelengths during transit/eclipse observation. The spectro-photometric signal is not affected only by image…
The increasing use of freeform optical surfaces raises the demand for optical design tools developed for generalized systems. In the design process surface-by-surface aberration contributions are of special interest. The expansion of the…
Pupil-remapping is a new high-dynamic range imaging technique that has recently demonstrated feasibility on sky. The current prototypes present however deceiving limiting magnitude, restricting the current use to the brightest stars in the…
Direct imaging of exoplanets is crucial for advancing our understanding of planetary systems beyond our solar system, but it faces significant challenges due to the high contrast between host stars and their planets. Wavefront aberrations…
Direct imaging of exoplanets or circumstellar disk material requires extreme contrast at the 10-6 to 10-12 levels at < 100 mas angular separation from the star. Focal-plane mask (FPM) coronagraphic imaging has played a key role in this…
Context. High-contrast imaging is currently the only available technique for the study of the thermodynamical and compositional properties of exoplanets in long-period orbits. The SPICES project is a coronagraphic space telescope dedicated…
High-contrast imaging observations of large angular diameter stars enable complementary science questions to be addressed compared to the baseline goals of proposed missions like the Terrestrial Planet Finder-Coronagraph, New World's…
Optical stellar interferometers have demonstrated milli-arcsecond resolution with few apertures spaced hundreds of meters apart. To obtain rich direct images, many apertures will be needed, for a better sampling of the incoming wavefront.…
The challenge of imaging low-density objects in an electron microscope without causing beam damage is significant in modern TEM. This is especially true for life science imaging, where the sample, rather than the instrument, still…