PIAA Coronagraph Development at NASA Ames: High Contrast Laboratory Demonstration at Inner Working Angles Down to 1.2 l/D

Details PIAA Coronagraph Development at NASA Ames: High Contrast Laboratory Demonstration at Inner Working Angles Down to 1.2 l/D PIAA Coronagraph Development at NASA Ames: High Contrast Laboratory Demonstration at Inner Working Angles Down to 1.2 l/D

Jan 2012

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21915517b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #155.17

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Coronagraph technology is advancing and promises to enable direct imaging and spectral characterization of extrasolar Earth-like planets with a telescope as small as 1.5m. A smaller Explorer-sized telescope, such as the EXCEDE mission concept, will be capable of seeing debris disks as dim as tens of zodis and potentially a few large planets. As such, EXCEDE will also serve as a technological and scientific precursor for an exo-Earth imaging mission. The Phase Induced Amplitude Apodization (PIAA) provides high throughput and high contrast close to the diffraction limit, enabling aggressive performance on small telescopes. We report on the latest results from a testbed at NASA Ames that is focused on developing and testing the PIAA coronagraph. This laboratory facility is designed to be flexible, operated in an actively thermally stabilized air environment, and to complement collaborative efforts at NASA JPL. For our wavefront control we are using small Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System deformable mirrors (MEMS DMs), which promise to reduce the size of the beam and overall instrument, a consideration that becomes very important for small telescopes. We describe our lab progress and results, which include: the demonstration of 1.9x10-8 average raw contrast in a dark zone from 2.0 - 3.4 λ/D and of 1.4x10-6 contrast from 1.2-2.0 λ/D (in monochromatic light); the testing of the next-generation reflective PIAA mirror set built by Tinsley and designed for broadband; and finally, discuss our most important past limiting factors as well as expected future ones.

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