Realization of the MIDI cold optics

摘要

MIDI is the Mid-Infrared interferometer for ESO's VLTI (Very Large Telescope Interferometer), which has been developed by a German-Dutch-French consortium [MPIA Heidelberg Germany, NOVA/ASTRON Dwingeloo Netherlands, Observatoire de Meudon France]. The initial aim of MIDI is to combine the beams from 2 telescopes in the l0micron N-band with a spatial resolution of up to l0milli-arcseconds and a maximum spectral resolution of 230. Modulation of the optical path difference can be done using piezo-driven mirrors at room temperature, but beam combination and detection of the interferometric signal has to be done at cryogenic temperatures due to the 'thermal' wavelength domain. The MIDI cold bench is therefore mounted inside a cryostat, cooled by means of a closed cycle cooler to about 40K for the cold optics and 8K for the detector. The design of the cold optics has been kept as simple as possible, creating challenges such as preserving alignment from 295K to 40K and accessibility. This poster describes the realization of the cold optics, the alignment and test strategies and laboratory results.