Exoplanet coronagraph shaped pupil masks and laboratory scale star shade masks: design, fabrication and characterization

Kunjithapatham Balasubramanian; Victor White; Karl Yee; Pierre Echternach; Richard Muller; Matthew Dickie; Eric Cady; Camilo Mejia Prada; Daniel Ryan; Ilya Poberezhskiy; Hanying Zhou; Brian Kern; A. J. Riggs; Neil T. Zimmerman; Dan Sirbu; Stuart Shaklan; Jeremy Kasdin

doi:10.1117/12.2188954

16 September 2015 Exoplanet coronagraph shaped pupil masks and laboratory scale star shade masks: design, fabrication and characterization

Kunjithapatham Balasubramanian, Victor White, Karl Yee, Pierre Echternach, Richard Muller, Matthew Dickie, Eric Cady, Camilo Mejia Prada, Daniel Ryan, Ilya Poberezhskiy, Hanying Zhou, Brian Kern, A. J. Riggs, Neil T. Zimmerman, Dan Sirbu, Stuart Shaklan, Jeremy Kasdin

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 9605, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VII; 96050L (2015) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2188954
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2015, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Star light suppression technologies to find and characterize faint exoplanets include internal coronagraph instruments as well as external star shade occulters. Currently, the NASA WFIRST-AFTA mission study includes an internal coronagraph instrument to find and characterize exoplanets. Various types of masks could be employed to suppress the host star light to about 10^-9 level contrast over a broad spectrum to enable the coronagraph mission objectives. Such masks for high contrast internal coronagraphic imaging require various fabrication technologies to meet a wide range of specifications, including precise shapes, micron scale island features, ultra-low reflectivity regions, uniformity, wave front quality, achromaticity, etc. We present the approaches employed at JPL to produce pupil plane and image plane coronagraph masks by combining electron beam, deep reactive ion etching, and black silicon technologies with illustrative examples of each, highlighting milestone accomplishments from the High Contrast Imaging Testbed (HCIT) at JPL and from the High Contrast Imaging Lab (HCIL) at Princeton University. We also present briefly the technologies applied to fabricate laboratory scale star shade masks.

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Kunjithapatham Balasubramanian, Victor White, Karl Yee, Pierre Echternach, Richard Muller, Matthew Dickie, Eric Cady, Camilo Mejia Prada, Daniel Ryan, Ilya Poberezhskiy, Hanying Zhou, Brian Kern, A. J. Riggs, Neil T. Zimmerman, Dan Sirbu, Stuart Shaklan, and Jeremy Kasdin "Exoplanet coronagraph shaped pupil masks and laboratory scale star shade masks: design, fabrication and characterization", Proc. SPIE 9605, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VII, 96050L (16 September 2015); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2188954

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