Polarization interferometric nulling coronagraph for high-contrast imaging

Abstract

We propose a novel, high-contrast imager called a polarization interferometric nulling coronagraph (PINC) for direct detection of extrasolar planets. The PINC uses achromatic half-wave plates (HWPs) installed in a fully symmetric beam combiner based on polarizing beam splitters. Jones calculus suggests that a stellar halo suppression level of ${10}^{-10}$ can be achieved at 5 $\lambda /D$ for a broad wavelength range from 1.6 to $2.2\mathrm{\mu m}$ by using Fresnel-rhomb HWPs made of BK7. Laboratory experiments on the PINC used two laser light sources (wavelengths of $\lambda =532$ and $671\mathrm{nm}$), and we obtained a halo suppression level of approximately ${10}^{-6}$ at 5 $\lambda /D$ for both wavelengths.

© 2010 Optical Society of America

Polarization interferometric stellar coronagraph

Naoshi Baba, Naoshi Murakami, Tsuyoshi Ishigaki, and Nobuyuki Hashimoto
Opt. Lett. 27(16) 1373-1375 (2002)

Speckle level suppression using an unbalanced nulling interferometer in a high-contrast imaging system

Kaito Yokochi, Naoshi Murakami, Jun Nishikawa, Lyu Abe, Motohide Tamura, Alexander V. Tavrov, Mistuo Takeda, and Takashi Kurokawa
Opt. Express 19(6) 4957-4969 (2011)

Monolithic achromatic nulling interference coronagraph: design and performance

Brian Hicks, Timothy Cook, Benjamin Lane, and Supriya Chakrabarti
Appl. Opt. 48(26) 4963-4977 (2009)

Achromatic interfero-coronagraph with two common-path interferometers in tandem

Alexander V. Tavrov, Jun Nishikawa, Motohide Tamura, Lyu Abe, Kaito Yokochi, Takashi Kurokawa, and Mitsuo Takeda
Appl. Opt. 47(27) 4915-4926 (2008)

Common-path achromatic interferometer-coronagraph: images from a breadboard demonstrator

Alexander V. Tavrov, Jun Nishikawa, Motohide Tamura, Lyu Abe, Kaito Yokochi, Takashi Kurokawa, and Mitsuo Takeda
Appl. Opt. 46(28) 6885-6895 (2007)