The Space Coronagraph Optical Bench (SCoOB): 7. design, fabrication, and first light for a self-coherent camera
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866912568853921792 |
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| author | Derby, Kevin Milani, Kian Hathaway, Grace C. Liberman, Joshua Van Gorkom, Kyle Anche, Ramya Schilperoort, Adam Fucetola, Corey Chalifoux, Brandon Hewawasam, Kuravi Mendillo, Christopher Haffert, Sebastiaan Y. Douglas, Ewan S. |
| author_facet | Derby, Kevin Milani, Kian Hathaway, Grace C. Liberman, Joshua Van Gorkom, Kyle Anche, Ramya Schilperoort, Adam Fucetola, Corey Chalifoux, Brandon Hewawasam, Kuravi Mendillo, Christopher Haffert, Sebastiaan Y. Douglas, Ewan S. |
| contents | The 2020 Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics tasked future space observatories with the goal of detecting and characterizing a large sample of Earth-like exoplanets. To achieve this, these observatories will require coronagraphs and wavefront control algorithms in order to achieve $10^{-10}$ or better starlight suppression. The Space Coronagraph Optical Bench (SCoOB) is a vacuum compatible testbed at the University of Arizona which aims to advance and mature starlight suppression technologies in a space-like environment. In its current configuration, SCoOB is a charge-6 vector vortex coronagraph outfitted with a Kilo-C microelectromechanical systems deformable mirror capable of achieving sub-$10^{-8}$ dark hole contrast at visible wavelengths using implicit electric field conjugation (iEFC). In this work, we demonstrate the use of a self-coherent camera (SCC) for dark hole digging and maintenance on SCoOB. The SCC introduces a small off-axis pinhole in the Lyot plane which allows some starlight to reach the focal plane and interfere with residual speckles. This enables high-order focal-plane wavefront sensing which can be combined with active wavefront control to null the speckles in a specified region of high contrast known as the dark hole. We discuss considerations for implementation, potential limitations, and provide a performance comparison with iEFC. We also discuss the design optimization and fabrication process for our SCC Lyot stops. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_02877 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The Space Coronagraph Optical Bench (SCoOB): 7. design, fabrication, and first light for a self-coherent camera Derby, Kevin Milani, Kian Hathaway, Grace C. Liberman, Joshua Van Gorkom, Kyle Anche, Ramya Schilperoort, Adam Fucetola, Corey Chalifoux, Brandon Hewawasam, Kuravi Mendillo, Christopher Haffert, Sebastiaan Y. Douglas, Ewan S. Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Optics The 2020 Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics tasked future space observatories with the goal of detecting and characterizing a large sample of Earth-like exoplanets. To achieve this, these observatories will require coronagraphs and wavefront control algorithms in order to achieve $10^{-10}$ or better starlight suppression. The Space Coronagraph Optical Bench (SCoOB) is a vacuum compatible testbed at the University of Arizona which aims to advance and mature starlight suppression technologies in a space-like environment. In its current configuration, SCoOB is a charge-6 vector vortex coronagraph outfitted with a Kilo-C microelectromechanical systems deformable mirror capable of achieving sub-$10^{-8}$ dark hole contrast at visible wavelengths using implicit electric field conjugation (iEFC). In this work, we demonstrate the use of a self-coherent camera (SCC) for dark hole digging and maintenance on SCoOB. The SCC introduces a small off-axis pinhole in the Lyot plane which allows some starlight to reach the focal plane and interfere with residual speckles. This enables high-order focal-plane wavefront sensing which can be combined with active wavefront control to null the speckles in a specified region of high contrast known as the dark hole. We discuss considerations for implementation, potential limitations, and provide a performance comparison with iEFC. We also discuss the design optimization and fabrication process for our SCC Lyot stops. |
| title | The Space Coronagraph Optical Bench (SCoOB): 7. design, fabrication, and first light for a self-coherent camera |
| topic | Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Optics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.02877 |