Dr. Christopher B. Mendillo Profile

Dr. Christopher B. Mendillo

Research Scientist at Univ of Massachusetts Lowell

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Author

Publications (17)

SPIE Journal Paper | 7 October 2020

Microelectromechanical deformable mirror development for high-contrast imaging, part 1: miniaturized, flight-capable control electronics

Eduardo Bendek, Garreth Ruane, Camilo Mejia Prada, Christopher Mendillo, A.J. Eldorado Riggs, Eugene Serabyn

JATIS Vol. 6 Issue 04

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Deformable mirrors (DMs) are a critical technology to enable coronagraphic direct imaging of exoplanets with current and planned ground- and space-based telescopes as well as future mission concepts, such as the Habitable Exoplanet Observatory and the Large UV/Optical/IR Surveyor. The latter concepts aim to image exoplanet types ranging from gas giants to Earth analogs. This places several requirements on the DMs such as requires a large actuator count (≳3000), fine surface height resolution (≲10 pm), and radiation hardened driving electronics with low mass and volume. We present the design and testing of a flight-capable, miniaturized DM controller. Having achieved contrasts on the order of 5 × 10 − 9 on a coronagraph testbed in vacuum in the high contrast imaging testbed facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), we demonstrate that the electronics are capable of meeting the requirements of future coronagraph-equipped space telescopes. We also report on functionality testing on-board the high-altitude balloon experiment “Planetary Imaging Concept Testbed Using a Recoverable Experiment – Coronagraph,” which aims to directly image debris disks and exozodiacal dust around nearby stars. The controller is designed for the Boston Micromachines Corporation Kilo-DM and is readily scalable to larger DM formats. The three main components of the system (the DM, driving electronics, and mechanical and heat management) are designed to be compact and have low-power consumption to enable its use not only on exoplanet missions, but also in a wide-range of applications that require precision optical systems, such as direct line-of-sight laser communications. The controller is capable of handling 1024 actuators with 220 V maximum dynamic range, 16-bit resolution, 14-bit accuracy, and 1 kHz operating frequency. The system fits in a 10 × 10 × 5 cm3 volume, weighs <0.5 kg, and consumes <8 W. We have developed a turnkey solution reducing the risk for future missions, lowering their cost by significantly reducing volume, weight, and power consumption of the wavefront control hardware.

Proceedings Article | 9 September 2019 Paper

The low-order wavefront control system for the PICTURE-C mission: deformable mirror anti-aliasing through temporal dithering

Kuravi Hewawasam, Christopher Mendillo, Glenn Howe, Jason Martel, Susanna Finn, Timothy Cook, Julien Charton, Pierre Mahiou, Supriya Chakrabarti

Proc. SPIE. 11117, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets IX

KEYWORDS: Actuators, Wavefronts, Wavefront sensors, Interfaces, Control systems, Mirrors, Clocks, Deformable mirrors, Analog electronics, Coronagraphy

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Proceedings Article | 9 September 2019 Paper

Decoupling the image-plane and low-order wavefront sensors for the PICTURE-C coronagraph

Christopher Mendillo, Kuravi Hewawasam, Glenn Howe, Jason Martel, Timothy Cook, Supriya Chakrabarti

Proc. SPIE. 11117, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets IX

KEYWORDS: Calibration, Coronagraphy, Wavefront sensors, Wavefronts, Sensors, Control systems, Deformable mirrors, Cameras, Exoplanets, CCD cameras

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Proceedings Article | 9 September 2019 Presentation + Paper

The PICTURE-C exoplanetary direct imaging balloon mission: first flight preparation

Christopher Mendillo, Kuravi Hewawasam, Glenn Howe, Jason Martel, Timothy Cook, Supriya Chakrabarti

Proc. SPIE. 11117, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets IX

KEYWORDS: Mirrors, Coronagraphy, Telescopes, Wavefronts, Sensors, Calibration, Wavefront sensors, Cameras, Stars, Control systems

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SPIE Journal Paper | 14 May 2019

Polarization aberration analysis for the PICTURE-C exoplanetary coronagraph

Christopher Mendillo, Glenn Howe, Kuravi Hewawasam, Jason Martel, Timothy Cook, Supriya Chakrabarti

JATIS Vol. 5 Issue 02

KEYWORDS: Polarization, Coronagraphy, Coating, Mirrors, Ray tracing, Geometrical optics, Wavefronts, Telescopes, Reflection, Reflectivity

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SPIE Journal Paper | 9 March 2018

Wavefront sensing in space: flight demonstration II of the PICTURE sounding rocket payload

Ewan Douglas, Christopher Mendillo, Timothy Cook, Kerri Cahoy, Supriya Chakrabarti

JATIS Vol. 4 Issue 01

KEYWORDS: Space telescopes, Wavefront sensors, Wavefronts, Coronagraphy, Mirrors, Actuators, Rockets, Telescopes, Phase measurement, Interferometers

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Proceedings Article | 1 September 2017 Presentation + Paper

Optical tolerances for the PICTURE-C mission: error budget for electric field conjugation, beam walk, surface scatter, and polarization aberration

Christopher Mendillo, Glenn Howe, Kuravi Hewawasam, Jason Martel, Susanna Finn, Timothy Cook, Supriya Chakrabarti

Proc. SPIE. 10400, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VIII

KEYWORDS: Polarization, Tolerancing, Scattering, Imaging systems, Adaptive optics, Exoplanets, Optical fabrication

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Proceedings Article | 1 September 2017 Paper

The low-order wavefront control system for the PICTURE-C mission: preliminary testbed results from the Shack-Hartmann sensor

Glenn Howe, Christopher Mendillo, Kuravi Hewawasam, Jason Martel, Susanna Finn, Timothy Cook, Supriya Chakrabarti

Proc. SPIE. 10400, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VIII

KEYWORDS: Control systems, Sensors, Imaging systems, Wavefronts, Wavefront sensors, Stars, Telescopes, Mirrors, Deformable mirrors

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Proceedings Article | 1 September 2017 Paper

The low-order wavefront control system for the PICTURE-C mission: high-speed image acquisition and processing

Kuravi Hewawasam, Christopher Mendillo, Glenn Howe, Jason Martel, Susanna Finn, Timothy Cook, Supriya Chakrabarti

Proc. SPIE. 10400, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VIII

KEYWORDS: Control systems, Imaging systems, Wavefronts, Image acquisition, Image processing, Wavefront sensors, Operating systems, Computing systems, Exoplanets

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Proceedings Article | 29 July 2016 Paper

Wavefront sensing in space from the PICTURE-B sounding rocket

Ewan Douglas, Christopher Mendillo, Timothy Cook, Supriya Chakrabarti

Proc. SPIE. 9904, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave

KEYWORDS: Wavefront sensors, Rockets, Mirrors, Wavefronts, Actuators, Phase measurement, Monochromatic aberrations, Coronagraphy, Visibility, Ferroelectric materials

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Proceedings Article | 16 September 2015 Paper

End-to-end simulation of high-contrast imaging systems: methods and results for the PICTURE mission family

Ewan Douglas, Kuravi Hewawasam, Christopher Mendillo, Kerri Cahoy, Timothy Cook, Susanna Finn, Glenn Howe, Marc Kuchner, Nikole Lewis, Anne Marinan, Dimitri Mawet, Supriya Chakrabarti

Proc. SPIE. 9605, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VII

KEYWORDS: Wavefronts, Coronagraphy, Rockets, Telescopes, Device simulation, Wave propagation, Space telescopes, Sensors, Point spread functions, Mirrors

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Proceedings Article | 16 September 2015 Paper

The low-order wavefront sensor for the PICTURE-C mission

Christopher Mendillo, Joshua Brown, Jason Martel, Glenn Howe, Kuravi Hewawasam, Susanna Finn, Timothy Cook, Supriya Chakrabarti, Ewan Douglas, Dimitri Mawet, Olivier Guyon, Garima Singh, Julien Lozi, Kerri Cahoy, Anne Marinan

Proc. SPIE. 9605, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VII

KEYWORDS: Sensors, Wavefront sensors, Coronagraphy, Wavefronts, Control systems, Telescopes, Data modeling, Mirrors, Visible radiation, Stars

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SPIE Journal Paper | 11 September 2015

Planetary Imaging Concept Testbed Using a Recoverable Experiment–Coronagraph (PICTURE C)

Timothy Cook, Kerri Cahoy, Supriya Chakrabarti, Ewan Douglas, Susanna Finn, Marc Kuchner, Nikole Lewis, Anne Marinan, Jason Martel, Dimitri Mawet, Benjamin Mazin, Seth Meeker, Christopher Mendillo, Gene Serabyn, David Stuchlik, Mark Swain

JATIS Vol. 1 Issue 04

KEYWORDS: Coronagraphy, Planets, Imaging systems, Telescopes, Stars, Exoplanets, Mirrors, Sensors, Wavefronts, Infrared imaging

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Proceedings Article | 26 September 2013 Paper

Direct imaging of exoplanetary systems with a monolithic multispectral camera

Brian Hicks, Kathleen Oram, Nikole Lewis, Christopher Mendillo, Paul Bierden, TImothy Cook, Supriya Chakrabarti

Proc. SPIE. 8864, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VI

KEYWORDS: Cameras, Exoplanets, Nulling interferometry, Imaging systems, Mirrors, Sensors, Wavefronts, Wavefront sensors, Diffraction, Point spread functions

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Proceedings Article | 21 September 2012 Paper

PICTURE: a sounding rocket experiment for direct imaging of an extrasolar planetary environment

Christopher Mendillo, Brian Hicks, Timothy Cook, Thomas Bifano, David Content, Benjamin Lane, B. Martin Levine, Douglas Rabin, Shanti Rao, Rocco Samuele, Edouard Schmidtlin, Michael Shao, J. Kent Wallace, Supriya Chakrabarti

Proc. SPIE. 8442, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2012: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave

KEYWORDS: Telescopes, Nulling interferometry, Mirrors, Calibration, Cameras, Space telescopes, National Ignition Facility, Interferometers, Rockets, Ferroelectric materials

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Proceedings Article | 20 August 2009 Paper

The Monolithic Achromatic Nulling Interference Coronagraph (MANIC) testbed

Brian Hicks, Timothy Cook, Benjamin Lane, Christopher Mendillo, Paul Jung, Supriya Chakrabarti

Proc. SPIE. 7440, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets IV

KEYWORDS: Nulling interferometry, Ferroelectric materials, Coronagraphy, Mirrors, Prisms, Sensors, Exoplanets, Beam splitters, Adaptive optics, Polarization

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Proceedings Article | 8 February 2008 Paper

Path length control in a nulling coronagraph with a MEMS deformable mirror and a calibration interferometer

Shanti Rao, J. Kent Wallace, Rocco Samuele, Supriya Chakrabarti, Timothy Cook, Brian Hicks, Paul Jung, Benjamin Lane, B. Martin Levine, Chris Mendillo, Edouard Schmidtlin, Mike Shao, Jason Stewart

Proc. SPIE. 6888, MEMS Adaptive Optics II

KEYWORDS: Nulling interferometry, Calibration, Targeting Task Performance metric, Interferometers, Mirrors, Actuators, Coronagraphy, Deformable mirrors, Cameras, Microelectromechanical systems

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Showing 5 of 17 publications

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