Abstract

Potential focal plane instruments can be classed as imagers, spectrometers, and photometers. Used in conjunction with phased arrays, we observe the following: Imagers Relatively little energy will be present in the central diffraction spike associated with a point source; a large portion of energy will be in the diffraction wings. Attaining full spatial resolution requires deconvolving the observed image with the phased array's point spread function. Accomplishing this requires both read-out and dark current noise to be negligible. This will be true for image intensifiers; for CCDs we require read-out noise of two electrons and dark current of 0.001 electrons/s. Arrays of 16,000 × 16,000 pixels may be required.

© 1986 Optical Society of America