Related papers: Instruments without optics: an integrated photonic…
Resolving fine details of astronomical objects provides critical insights into their underlying physical processes. This drives in part the desire to construct ever-larger telescopes and interferometer arrays and to observe at shorter…
Photonic technologies offer numerous advantages for astronomical instruments such as spectrographs and interferometers owing to their small footprints and diverse range of functionalities. Operating at the diffraction-limit, it is…
I very briefly describe the latest generation near infrared (1-2.5 micron) instruments which are available on, or under development for `large' (D>=3.5 m) telescopes. Most of the imagers under construction are limited to relatively small…
Highest resolution imaging in astronomy is achieved by interferometry, connecting telescopes over increasingly longer distances, and at successively shorter wavelengths. Here, we present the first diffraction-limited images in visual light,…
Direct imaging instruments have the spatial resolution to resolve exoplanets from their host star. This enables direct characterization of the exoplanets atmosphere, but most direct imaging instruments do not have spectrographs with high…
Perfect lensing using negative refractive index materials and radiationless electromagnetic interference both provide extreme subwavelength focusing by "amplifying" evanescent wave components that are usually lost. This paper provides a…
This paper addresses the problem of imaging in the presence of diffraction-photons. Diffraction-photons arise from the low contrast ratio of DMDs ($\sim\,1000:1$), and very much degrade the quality of images captured by SPAD-based systems.…
Ptychography is a lensless, computational imaging method that utilises diffraction patterns to determine the amplitude and phase of an object. In transmission ptychography, the diffraction patterns are recorded by a detector positioned…
Future optical interferometric instrumentation mainly relies on the availability of an efficient cophasing system: once available, what has so far postponed the relevance of direct imaging with an interferometer will vanish. This paper…
Spectral measurements in the infrared (IR) optical range provide unique fingerprints of materials which are useful for material analysis, environmental sensing, and health diagnostics. Current IR spectroscopy techniques require the use of…
Lenses are designed to fulfill Fermats principle such that all light interferes constructively in its focus, guaranteeing its maximum concentration. It can be shown that imaging via an unmodified full pupil yields the maximum transfer…
Extreme adaptive optics systems are now in operation across the globe. These systems, capable of high order wavefront correction, deliver Strehl ratios of 90% in the near-infrared. Originally intended for the direct imaging of exoplanets,…
The integration of nanoscale electronics with conventional optical devices is restricted by the diffraction limit of light. Metals can confine light at the subwavelength scales needed, but they are lossy, while dielectric materials do not…
The spectrogram is a classical DSP tool used to view signals in both time and frequency. Unfortunately, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal limits our ability to use them for detecting and measuring narrowband signal modulation in wideband…
HIRES, a high resolution spectrometer, is one of the first five instruments foreseen in the ESO roadmap for the E-ELT. This spectrograph should ideally provide full spectral coverage from the UV limit to 2.5 microns, with a resolving power…
Besides being the foundational material for microelectronics, in optics, crystalline silicon has long been used for making infrared lenses and mirrors. More recently, silicon has become the key material to achieve large-scale integration of…
The next generation of large ground-based optical and infrared telescopes will provide new challenges for designers of astronomical instrumentation. The varied science cases for these extremely large telescopes (ELTs) require a large range…
Infrared (IR) spectroscopy is an indispensable tool for many practical applications including material analysis and sensing. Existing IR spectroscopy techniques face challenges related to the inferior performance and the high cost of…
Recent theoretical work suggested upper bounds on the operating bandwidths of flat lenses. Here, we show how these bounds can be circumvented via a multi-level diffractive lens (MDL) of diameter = 100 mm, focal length = 200 mm, device…
Diffraction limit is manifested in the loss of high spatial frequency information that results from decay of evanescent waves. As a result, conventional far-field optics yields no information about an object's subwavelength features. Here…