Optical designs for submillimeter-wave spherical-primary (sub)orbital telescopes and novel optimization techniques

Luca Olmi

doi:10.1117/12.460060

Abstract

I discuss the guidelines to the optical design for (sub)millimeter telescopes employing a spherical primary and large-format bolometer arrays. Although various optical solutions for ground visible/IR telescopes using a spherical primary are discussed in the literature, these configurations are usually not acceptable for submillimeter-wave telescopes on orbital or sub-orbital platforms. I thus analyse alternative optical solutions that might be used on spherical-primary antennas, employing either on-axis or (cooled) off-axis optical elements to correct the spherical aberration introduced by the primary, that might be also suitable for ground-based telescopes. These configurations are discussed in relation to optical performance and various operational design constraints, using as a baseline spherical-primary telescope BLAST, the "Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope", currently under construction. Modern (sub)millimeter telescopes also require optimized auxiliary optics to efficiently couple the telescope to the receiver over large fields of view. I will thus discuss how to analyze and optimize the design using both the Strehl ratio and the coupling efficiency to evaluate the quality of the off-axis wavefronts and the loss in the power coupling with the horn, using a customized optimization algorithm.

Citation Download Citation

Luca Olmi, Luca Olmi, } "Optical designs for submillimeter-wave spherical-primary (sub)orbital telescopes and novel optimization techniques", Proc. SPIE 4849, Highly Innovative Space Telescope Concepts, (18 December 2002); doi: 10.1117/12.460060; https://doi.org/10.1117/12.460060

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