Demonstration of 1e-10 contrast at the inner working angle of a starshade in broadband light and at a flight-like Fresnel number

Anthony Harness; Stuart Shaklan; N. Jeremy Kasdin; Michael Galvin; Phillip Willems; Kunjithapatham Balasubramanian; Victor White; Karl Yee; Richard Muller; Philip Dumont; Simon Vuong

doi:10.1117/12.2528445

9 September 2019 Demonstration of 1e-10 contrast at the inner working angle of a starshade in broadband light and at a flight-like Fresnel number

Anthony Harness, Stuart Shaklan, N. Jeremy Kasdin, Michael Galvin, Phillip Willems, Kunjithapatham Balasubramanian, Victor White, Karl Yee, Richard Muller, Philip Dumont, Simon Vuong

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 11117, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets IX; 111170L (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2528445
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2019, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Starshades are a leading technology to enable the direct detection and spectroscopic characterization of Earth-like exoplanets. Starshade starlight suppression technology is being advanced through sub-scale starshade demonstrations at the Princeton Starshade Testbed and we present here the successful completion of a technology milestone focused on the demonstration of high contrast at flight-required levels. We demonstrate 10^-10 contrast at the inner working angle of a starshade with a flight-like Fresnel number at multiple wavelengths spanning a 10% bandpass. We show that while contrast at the inner working angle is limited by the presence of non-scalar diffraction as light propagates through narrow slits between the starshade petals, high contrast is still achieved over most of the image. Successful completion of this milestone verifies we can design a starshade capable of producing scientifically useful contrast levels.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Anthony Harness, Stuart Shaklan, N. Jeremy Kasdin, Michael Galvin, Phillip Willems, Kunjithapatham Balasubramanian, Victor White, Karl Yee, Richard Muller, Philip Dumont, and Simon Vuong "Demonstration of 1e-10 contrast at the inner working angle of a starshade in broadband light and at a flight-like Fresnel number", Proc. SPIE 11117, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets IX, 111170L (9 September 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2528445

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