Aug 2026· Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation· Vol 14154, pp. 1415419 - 1415419-8· 1 citation· 35 references
EngineeringPhysics
Abstract
Spatial Mode Demultiplexers (SPADE) are devices that split an incoming wavefront into a particular set of electric field modes. SPADEs have been shown to be quantum-optimal for many measurement problems including coronagraphy, wavefront sensing and interferometric (nulling) beam combiners. We will show how quantum optimal SPADEs can be implemented using Multi Plane Light Converters (MPLC). MPLCs are devices that use several phase plates in sequence to achieve arbitrary unitary transformations. The phase plates themselves are implemented using liquid-crystal technology that allows us to create high-quality broadband phase plates. The accurate control of the local phase through the direct write method results in MPLCs with minimal background scatter. We will show the designs and simulated performance for each of the proposed use cases for the ELTs, HWO and LIFE and show how they improve over current concepts.
Direct imaging of exoplanets is very tricky and requires extremely well corrected wavefronts. Especially low order modes are detrimental to the performance of coronagraphs at their inner-working angle. However, that is precisely where conventional AO systems have the highest residuals that are caused by servo-lag error...
S. Haffert, J. Males, P. Johnson et al.· Astronomical Telescopes + In...· 0 citations
Spatial light modulators (SLMs) are ubiquitous in many areas in Optics and Photonics, enabling precise control at the local level of the optical properties of light wavefronts. Among them, digital backplane liquid crystal on silicon devices (LCoS) are most widely use, enabling the modulation of the amplitude, phase or...
A. Sánchez-Montes, Adrián Moya-Aliaga, G. Nájar et al.· Optics and Photonics for Inf...· 0 citations
This dissertation presents a single-shot phase and amplitude retrieval technique based on spatial light modulator (SLM)-based digital holography. The proposed method enables accurate reconstruction of complex optical fields from a single interferogram, reducing sensitivity to environmental fluctuations and improving ex...
Interferometric testing of powered optics provides high accuracy but relies on reference optics, precise alignment, and a stable environment. This study presents a non-interferometric multiplane-accelerated Wirtinger flow (MP-AWF) method for recovering spherical-lens wavefronts from axially sampled diffraction intensit...
Conventional imaging systems rely on large bulk optics to collect and focus light, resulting in significant con- straints on mass, volume, alignment, and scalability. Most of this mass and volume is taken up by a meter-size primary mirror and meters of propagation to form an image, which can only be sensed with intensi...
D. Marx, David Redding, Farshad Serat Nahaei et al.· Unconventional Imaging, Sens...· 0 citations
Texas Instruments Phase Light Modulators (TI-PLM) is a MEMS based device for modulating the phase of light. It plays an important role in computational holographic display. However, due to its relatively large pixel pitch (10.8 um for 0.67 VIS PLM) and limited phase modulating levels (16 levels), the image quality suff...
