High-speed imaging and wavefront sensing with an infrared avalanche photodiode array

Abstract

Infrared avalanche photodiode arrays represent a panacea for many branches of astronomy by enabling extremely low-noise, high-speed and even photon-counting measurements at near-infrared wavelengths. We recently demonstrated the use of an early engineering-grade infrared avalanche photodiode array that achieves a correlated double sampling read noise of 0.73 e- in the lab, and a total noise of 2.52 e- on sky, and supports simultaneous high-speed imaging and tip-tilt wavefront sensing with the Robo-AO visible-light laser adaptive optics system at the Palomar Observatory 1.5-m telescope. We report here on the improved image quality achieved simultaneously at visible and infrared wavelengths by using the array as part of an image stabilization control-loop with adaptive-optics sharpened guide stars. We also discuss a newly enabled survey of nearby late M-dwarf multiplicity as well as future uses of this technology in other adaptive optics and high-contrast imaging applications.

Accepted to Astrophysical Journal. 8 pages, 3 figures and 1 table

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Robo-AO Kepler Planetary Candidate Survey II: Adaptive Optics Imaging of 969 Kepler Exoplanet Candidate Host Stars
• Magnetic Inflation and Stellar Mass I: Revised Parameters for the Component Stars of the Kepler Low-mass Eclipsing Binary T-Cyg1-12664
• The Performance of the Robo-AO Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics System at the Kitt Peak 2.1-m Telescope
• Overview of the SAPHIRA Detector for AO Applications
• Large Adaptive Optics Survey for Substellar Objects (LASSO) Around Young, Nearby, Low-mass Stars with Robo-AO
• Robo-AO Kitt Peak: Status of the system and deployment of a sub-electron readnoise IR camera to detect low-mass companions
• The Rapid Transient Surveyor