Photonic lantern tip/tilt detector for adaptive optics systems

Abstract

In this work, we demonstrate a four-core multicore fiber photonic lantern tip/tilt wavefront sensor. To diagnose the low-order Zernike aberrations, we exploit the ability of the photonic lantern to encode the characteristics of a complex incoming beam at the multimode facet of the sensor to intensity distributions at the multicore fiber output. Here, we provide a comprehensive numerical analysis capable of predicting the performance of fabricated devices and experimentally demonstrate the concept. Two receiver architectures are implemented to discern tip/tilt information by (i) imaging the four-core fiber facet on a 2D detector and (ii) direct power measurement of the single mode outputs using a multicore fiber multiplexer and photodetectors. For both receiver schemes, an angular detection window of ∼ 0.4 ∘ at 1064 nm can be achieved. Our results are expected to further facilitate the development of intensity-based fiber wavefront sensors for adaptive optics systems.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Jul 01, 2021
Source ID
10.1364/ol.430761

Entities

People

  • Caleb Dobias
  • Daniel Cruz-delgado
  • Jose E. Antonio-lopez
  • Juan Carlos Alvarado-zacarias
  • Julian Martinez-mercado
  • Matthew Cooper
  • Nicolas K. Fontaine
  • Rodrigo Amezcua-correa
  • Steffen Wittek

Organizations

  • Army Research Office
  • Bell Labs
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  • National Science Foundation
  • University of Central Florida

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Distributed Systems and Data Platform Development
  • Optical Physics and Photonics.