September 2021
Spotlight Summary by J. Kent Wallace
On-sky results for the integrated microlens ring tip-tilt sensor
Coupling starlight into a centrally located, single-mode fiber is accomplished by actively monitoring the light that is simultaneously coupled into an outer ring of six multimode fibers. Astronomical adaptive optics systems now routinely deliver near-diffraction-limited images, and a new generation of single-mode, fiber-fed instruments take advantage of this correction. However, coupling starlight into fibers can be fraught with implementation issues such as non-common path optics and mechanical disturbances. This elegant method described by Phillip Hottinger et al. enables sensing of the tip-tilt errors where it matters - at the same focal plane where the single-mode science fiber is located. In this way, fiber-coupling is demonstrated with a simple architecture that yields high performance. This capability will be essential for future, astronomical adaptive optics systems that couple starlight into single-mode fibers.
You must log in to add comments.
Add Comment
You must log in to add comments.
Article Information
On-sky results for the integrated microlens ring tip-tilt sensor
Philipp Hottinger, Robert J. Harris, Jonathan Crass, Philipp-Immanuel Dietrich, Matthias Blaicher, Andrew Bechter, Brian Sands, Timothy Morris, Alastair G. Basden, Nazim Ali Bharmal, Jochen Heidt, Theodoros Anagnos, Philip L. Neureuther, Martin Glück, Jennifer Power, Jörg-Uwe Pott, Christian Koos, Oliver Sawodny, and Andreas Quirrenbach
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 38(9) 2517-2527 (2021) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF