An astrophotonics platform for Lick Observatory: testing adaptive mode extraction with photonic lanterns

Matthew C. DeMartino; Kevin Bundy; Holger Schmidt; Renate Kupke; Nick MacDonald; Elinor Gates; Jon Rees; Paul Lynam; Phil Hinz; Rebecca Jensen-Clem; Md Nafiz Amin; Zoe Weber

doi:10.1117/12.2630591

29 August 2022 An astrophotonics platform for Lick Observatory: testing adaptive mode extraction with photonic lanterns

Matthew C. DeMartino, Kevin Bundy, Holger Schmidt, Renate Kupke, Nick MacDonald, Elinor Gates, Jon Rees, Paul Lynam, Phil Hinz, Rebecca Jensen-Clem, Md Nafiz Amin, Zoe Weber

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 12188, Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation V; 1218838 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2630591
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2022, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Conference Poster

Abstract

Astrophotonic technologies, specifically mass-produced “spectrometers-on-a-chip,” offer an exciting path toward dramatically reducing the cost-per-spectrum of astronomical spectrographs. This technology could one day enable significant multiplexing upgrades to fiber-based instruments and inspire new facilities capable of collecting 100,000 simultaneous spectra in both single-fiber and IFU formats. Here, we report on a new astrophotonics platform at Lick Observatory for on-sky testing of such technologies. Our initial focus is on the problem of efficiently coupling telescope light into photonic devices, which are typically optimized to work with a single mode, i.e., with diffraction-limited light. While photonic lanterns can deliver multiple single-mode outputs given multi-modal input, here we introduce the concept of Adaptive Mode Extraction (AME), which uses a second, reference lantern to select the brightest instantaneous mode or modes for injection into photonic devices. Analogous to “speckle spectroscopy,” this technique has the potential to increase the signal-to-noise ratio for faint sources by spatially filtering out the sky background. We have deployed our testing platform behind the AO system at the Shane Telescope and demonstrate that it meets requirements for our planned on-sky tests of AME, namely the ability to couple AO-corrected light from two nearby stars (within 2′′) into two dynamically-positioned lanterns, with adequate throughput (<40%) and image quality (0.15′′).

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Matthew C. DeMartino, Kevin Bundy, Holger Schmidt, Renate Kupke, Nick MacDonald, Elinor Gates, Jon Rees, Paul Lynam, Phil Hinz, Rebecca Jensen-Clem, Md Nafiz Amin, and Zoe Weber "An astrophotonics platform for Lick Observatory: testing adaptive mode extraction with photonic lanterns", Proc. SPIE 12188, Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation V, 1218838 (29 August 2022); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2630591

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