The IFS of SPHERE: integration and laboratory performances

摘要

SPHERE is an exo-solar planet imager, which goal is to detect giant exo-solar planets in the vicinity of bright stars andto characterize them through spectroscopic and polarimetric observations. It is a complete system with a core made of anextreme-Adaptive Optics (AO) turbulence correction, pupil tracker and NIR and Visible coronagraph devices. At itsback end, a differential dual imaging camera and an integral field spectrograph (IFS) work in the Near Infrared (NIR) Y,J, H and Ks bands (0.95≤λ≤2.32 μm) and a high resolution polarization camera covers the visible (0.6≤λ≤0.9 μm). TheIFS is a low resolution spectrograph (R~50) which works in the near IR (0.95≤λ≤1.6 μm), an ideal wavelength range forthe detection of planetary features. The IFS is based on a new conception microlens array (BIGRE) of 145X145 lensletsdesigned to reduce as low as possible the contrast. The IFU will cover a field of view of about 1.7 x 1.7 square arcsecsreaching a contrast of 10sup-7/sup, giving an high contrast and high spatial resolution "imager" able to search for planet wellinside the star PSF. In the last year it has been integrated onto the huge optical bench of SPHERE and fully tested.© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.