Shaped Pupil Coronagraphs for Planet Finding: Optimization, Manufacturing, and Experimental Results

Published

August 4, 2005

Author(s)

Jeremy Kasdin, Ruslan Belikov, James A. Beall, Robert J. Vanderbei, Michael G. Littman, Michael Carr, Amir Give''on

Abstract

Current plans call for the first Terrestrial Planet Finder mission, TPF-C, to be a monolithic space telescope with a coronagraph for achieving high contrast. Our group at Princeton pioneered the concept of shaped pupils for high contrast imaging and planet detection. In previous papers we introduced a number of families of optimal shaped pupils in square, circular, and elliptical apertures. Here, we show our most promising designs and present our laboratory results for the elliptical shaped pupil. We are currently achieving better than 10?7 contrast at 10 ?/D and 10?5 contrast at 4 ?/D, without wavefront control. We describe the deep ion etching manufacturing process to make free standing masks. We also discuss what is limiting contrast in the laboratory and our progress in wavefront correction.

Proceedings Title

Proc., SPIE Conference on Optical Engineering and Instrumentation

Volume

5905

Conference Dates

July 31-August 4, 2005

Conference Location

San Diego, CA, USA

Conference Title

Conference on Optical Engineering and Instrumentation

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

coronagraph, MEMS, shaped pupil, terrestrial planet finder

Citation

Kasdin, J. , Belikov, R. , Beall, J. , Vanderbei, R. , Littman, M. , Carr, M. and Give''on, A. (2005), Shaped Pupil Coronagraphs for Planet Finding: Optimization, Manufacturing, and Experimental Results, Proc., SPIE Conference on Optical Engineering and Instrumentation, San Diego, CA, USA, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=32061 (Accessed October 21, 2025)