Deep nulling of laser light in a rotational shearing interferometer

Stefan R. Martin; Eugene Serabyn; Graham Hardy

doi:10.1117/12.459340

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21 February 2003 Deep nulling of laser light in a rotational shearing interferometer

Stefan R. Martin, Eugene Serabyn, Graham Hardy

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Proceedings Volume 4838, Interferometry for Optical Astronomy II; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.459340
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2002, Waikoloa, Hawai'i, United States

Abstract

There is great interest in techniques that potentially enable the direct detection of light from planets orbiting nearby stars. In one technique, nulling interferometry, the light from two or more separate telescopes can be destructively interfered to cancel the light from the star, allowing detection of the faint off-axis light from an orbiting planet or circumstellar disc. At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, broadband white light nulls limited by dispersion effects have been previously reported. In this paper, we investigate other limiting effects using a monochromatic laser source. We report transient laser nulls as deep as 1 part in 10⁶ at a wavelength of 633 nm in a nulling interferometer operated in air. We discuss the techniques used to obtain these nulls and the residual sources of stray light and other null limitations.

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Stefan R. Martin, Eugene Serabyn, and Graham Hardy "Deep nulling of laser light in a rotational shearing interferometer", Proc. SPIE 4838, Interferometry for Optical Astronomy II, (21 February 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.459340

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