The Infrared Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) for TMT: optical design of IRIS imager with "Co-axis double TMA"

Abstract

IRIS (InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph) is one of the first-generation instruments for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). IRIS is composed of a combination of near-infrared (0.84-2.4 μm) diffraction limited imager and integral field spectrograph. To achieve near-diffraction limited resolutions in the near-infrared wavelength region, IRIS uses the advanced adaptive optics system NFIRAOS (Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System) and integrated on-instrument wavefront sensors (OIWFS). However, IRIS itself has challenging specifications. First, the overall system wavefront error should be less than 40 nm in Y, z, J, and H-band and 42 nm in K-band over a 34.0 × 34.0 arcsecond field of view. Second, the throughput of the imager components should be more than 42 percent. To achieve the extremely low wavefront error and high throughput, all reflective design has been newly proposed. We have adopted a new design policy called "Co-Axis double-TMA", which cancels the asymmetric aberrations generated by "collimator/TMA" and "camera/TMA" efficiently. The latest imager design meets all specifications, and, in particular, the wavefront error is less than 17.3 nm and throughput is more than 50.8 percent. However, to meet the specification of wavefront error and throughput as built performance, the IRIS imager requires both mirrors with low surface irregularity after high-reflection coating in cryogenic and high-level Assembly Integration and Verification (AIV). To deal with these technical challenges, we have done the tolerance analysis and found that total pass rate is almost 99 percent in the case of gauss distribution and more than 90 percent in the case of parabolic distribution using four compensators. We also have made an AIV plan and feasibility check of the optical elements. In this paper, we will present the details of this optical system.

Files

Additional details