13 papers
Design, Fabrication, and Free-Space Characterization of a Two-Photon-Polymerized Nano-printed Photonic Lantern
Kyra Watts, Natasha Popenoe, Benjamin Gerard +6
Photonic lanterns provide an interface between multimode optical fields and arrays of single-mode waveguides, making them promising components for modal filtering, wavefront sensin…
Initial modeling and testbed feasibility studies of WaveDriver: a laser guide star AO system for HWO
Dominic F. Sanchez, Benjamin L. Gerard, Peter Waswa +16
The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) will require greater wavefront stability than achieved by JWST, pushing conventional telescope architectures to picometer-level…
On-sky results from REDWOODS, a platform at Lick/ShaneAO for testing second stage AO technologies
Benjamin L. Gerard, Dominic F. Sanchez, Aditya R. Sengupta +11
REDWOODS is a new sub-testbed within the Shane Adaptive Optics (AO) system at Lick observatory, developed to test second stage AO wavefront sensing and control technologies, includ…
The FastrSHWFS Development & Test Results
Natasha Popenoe, Benjamin Gerard, Dominic Sanchez
The recent 2020 Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics listed habitable exoplanet imaging with future extreme adaptive optics (AO) on 30m-class telescopes as a key priority i…
Laboratory characterization of a multi-photonic lantern optical waveguide using off-axis holography
Aditya R. Sengupta, Benjamin L. Gerard, Dominic Sanchez +7
Photonic lanterns (PLs) are waveguides that convert multi-mode input light to single-mode outputs. Wavefront sensing (WFS) and spectroscopy using a PL have been demonstrated, but P…
Experimentally-determined performance limits for joint imaging and wavefront sensing with a photonic lantern
Aditya R. Sengupta, Vincent Chambouleyron, Rebecca Jensen-Clem +16
The photonic lantern (PL) is a focal-plane wavefront sensor (WFS) that can be used for second-stage control of extreme adaptive optics (AO) systems. While the number of sensed mode…
WaveDriver: a Laser Guide Star AO System for HWO
Benjamin L. Gerard, Alex Geringer-Sameth, Aditya R. Sengupta +7
Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) presents a key challenge for technology development in the coming years, requiring a more stable system than \textit{JWST}. WaveD…
Control algorithms for dual-wavefront sensor single-conjugate adaptive optics
Aditya R. Sengupta, Lisa A. Poyneer, Benjamin L. Gerard +2
High-contrast imaging systems using active control with adaptive optics (AO) are often limited by non-common path (NCP) aberrations that are seen only at the final science image. A…
The Santa Cruz Extreme AO Lab (SEAL) 2.0: A reflective, multi-wavelength rebuild
Rebecca Jensen-Clem, Vincent Chambouleyron, Prince Javier +20
The Santa cruz Extreme Adaptive optics Lab (SEAL) is a visible/near-infrared wavelength testbed designed to support technology development for high contrast imaging on large, segme…
WaveDriver: a Laser Guide Star AO System for HWO
Benjamin L. Gerard, Alex Geringer-Sameth, Aditya R. Sengupta +16
HWO's Tier 1 Contrast Stability Technology Gap presents a key challenge for technology development in the coming years, requiring to a >100x more stable system than JWST. WaveDrive…
Jupyter simulations Using NGS Intensity with PyWFS for REDWOODS
Joel Hurtado, Benjamin Gerard, Cesar Laguna +1
REDWOODS on ShaneAO at Lick Observatory implements a second-stage, 3-sided reflective pyramid wavefront sensor (PWFS), which, under low-light conditions, offers an improved signal-…
Developments on LLNL's high contrast testbed and Lick/ShaneAO
Benjamin L. Gerard, Dominic F. Sanchez, Aditya R. Sengupta +15
LLNL has recently setup a High Contrast Testbed (HCT) for AO and exoplanet imaging technology development. We present the various HCT technologies currently under development, incl…
Developing a Wyne Corrector for higher spectral bandwidth focal plane wavefront sensing
Dominic F. Sanchez, Benjamin L. Gerard, Bautista R. Fernandez +2
Focal plane wavefront sensing techniques are generally limited to using imaging systems that have below 1% spectral bandwidths, due to the radial smearing of speckles from chromati…