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 can be achieved at 5 for a broad wavelength range from 1.6 to by using Fresnel-rhomb HWPs made of BK7. Laboratory experiments on the PINC used two laser light sources (wavelengths of and ), and we obtained a halo suppression level of approximately at 5 for both wavelengths.
© 2010 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
Naoshi Baba, Naoshi Murakami, Tsuyoshi Ishigaki, and Nobuyuki Hashimoto
Opt. Lett. 27(16) 1373-1375 (2002)
Brian Hicks, Timothy Cook, Benjamin Lane, and Supriya Chakrabarti
Appl. Opt. 48(26) 4963-4977 (2009)
Alexander V. Tavrov, Jun Nishikawa, Motohide Tamura, Lyu Abe, Kaito Yokochi, Takashi Kurokawa, and Mitsuo Takeda
Appl. Opt. 47(27) 4915-4926 (2008)