Broadband phase and intensity compensation with a deformable mirror for an interferometric nuller.
Nulling interferometry has been proposed for the direct detection of Earth-like planets. Deep stable nulls require careful control of the relative intensity and phase of the beams that are being combined. We present a novel compensator, the Adaptive Nuller, that corrects the intensity and phase as a function of wavelength from 8 to 12 microm using a deformable mirror. This compensator has been used to produce rejection ratios of 82,000:1 over a bandwidth of 3.2 microm centered around 10 microm.
Peters
Robert D
RD
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, California 91109, USA. Robert.D.Peters@jpl.nasa.gov
Lay
Oliver P
OP
Jeganathan
Muthu
M