Experimental and on-sky demonstration of spectrally dispersed wavefront sensing using a photonic lantern
Adaptive optics (AO) systems are critical in any application where highly resolved imaging or beam control must be performed through a dynamic medium. Such applications include astronomy and free-space optical communications, where light propagates through the atmosphere, as well as medical microscopy and vision science, where light propagates through biological tissues. Recent works have demonstrated common-path wavefront sensors (WFSs) for adaptive optics using the photonic lantern (PL), a slowly varying waveguide that can efficiently couple multi-moded light into single-mode fibers (SMFs). We use the SCExAO astrophotonics platform at the 8 m Subaru Telescope to show that spectral dispersion of lantern outputs can improve correction fidelity, culminating with an on-sky demonstration of real-time wavefront control. This is the first, to the best of our knowledge, result for either a spectrally dispersed or a photonic lantern wavefront sensor. Combined with the benefits offered by lanterns in precision spectroscopy, our results suggest the future possibility of a unified wavefront sensing spectrograph using compact photonic devices.
Authors
- Sergio G. Leon-Saval (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5606-3874)
- Nemanja Jovanović (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5213-6207)
- Yoo Jung Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1392-0845)
- Olivier Guyon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1097-9908)
- Julien Lozi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3047-1845)
- Kyohoon Ahn (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1094-852X)
- Steph Sallum (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6871-6775)
- Barnaby Norris (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8352-7515)
- Yinzi Xin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6171-9081)
- Sébastien Vievard (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4018-2569)
- Jonathan Lin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8542-3317)
- Daniel Levinstein
- Christopher H. Betters (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3797-2028)
- Vincent Déo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4514-7906)
- Michael P. Fitzgerald (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0176-8973)
Institutions
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- The University of Sydney (AU)
- University of Arizona (US)
- Subaru (Japan) (JP)
- Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KR)
- University of California System (US)
- Astrobiology Center (JP)
- National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (JP)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Optics Letters
- Published
- 2025-03-24
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1364/ol.551624
- Citations
- 4
- Primary Topic
- Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 4.99
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science