Welcome to the new version of CaltechAUTHORS. Login is currently restricted to library staff. If you notice any issues, please email coda@library.caltech.edu
Published April 29, 2021 | Published
Journal Article Open

Scalable photonic-based nulling interferometry with the dispersed multi-baseline GLINT instrument

Abstract

Characterisation of exoplanets is key to understanding their formation, composition and potential for life. Nulling interferometry, combined with extreme adaptive optics, is among the most promising techniques to advance this goal. We present an integrated-optic nuller whose design is directly scalable to future science-ready interferometric nullers: the Guided-Light Interferometric Nulling Technology, deployed at the Subaru Telescope. It combines four beams and delivers spatial and spectral information. We demonstrate the capability of the instrument, achieving a null depth better than 10⁻³ with a precision of 10⁻⁴ for all baselines, in laboratory conditions with simulated seeing applied. On sky, the instrument delivered angular diameter measurements of stars that were 2.5 times smaller than the diffraction limit of the telescope. These successes pave the way for future design enhancements: scaling to more baselines, improved photonic component and handling low-order atmospheric aberration within the instrument, all of which will contribute to enhance sensitivity and precision.

Additional Information

© The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Received 16 August 2020; Accepted 29 March 2021; Published 29 April 2021. This work was supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP180103413. Critical fabrication was performed in part at the OptoFab node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility utilising Commonwealth as well as NSW state government funding. S.G. acknowledges funding through a Macquarie University Research Fellowship (9201300682) and the Australian Research Council Discovery Program (DE160100714). N.C. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement CoG - 683029). The authors acknowledge support from the JSPS (Grant-in-Aid for Research # 23340051, # 26220704 # 23103002). This work was supported by the Astrobiology Center (ABC) of the National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Japan and the director's contingency fund at Subaru Telescope. This research is based on data collected at Subaru Telescope, which is operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. The development of SCExAO was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Grant-in-Aid for Research # 23340051, # 26220704, # 23103002, # 19H00703, # 19H00695), the Astrobiology Center of the National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Japan, the Mt Cuba Foundation and the director's contingency fund at Subaru Telescope. The authors wish to recognise and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Maunakea has always had within the indigenous Hawaiian community, and are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. Data availability: The data produced in this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Code availability: The code of the data reduction of GLINT is available on Github36: https://github.com/SydneyAstrophotonicInstrumentationLab/GLINTPipeline. The documentation is hosted on the platform Readthedoc.org: https://glintpipeline.readthedocs.io/en/latest/. Author Contributions: M.-A.M. characterised the instrument, developed the data-analysis pipeline, and led most aspects of this observational campaign. The initial GLINT instrument design was developed by B.N. and P.T. N.C., S.G., A.A., N.J., T.L., B.N., S.L.S. and P.T. contributed to the design, construction, testing, and initial on-sky deployment of the GLINT module on SCExAO, in collaboration with O.G., J.L., S.V. and V.D. The photonic chip was designed and manufactured by S.G. and T.L., building upon work by A.A., and with resources, support and expertise contributed by T.G., M.J.W., and J.S.L. All authors contributed to the text and interpretation. The authors declare no competing interests. Peer review information: Nature Communications thanks the anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Attached Files

Published - s41467-021-22769-x.pdf

Files

s41467-021-22769-x.pdf
Files (4.8 MB)
Name Size Download all
md5:90be9d5a643a46a95c8d2bd46de2c1f5
4.8 MB Preview Download

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023