Abstract
Astrophotonics lies at the interface of astronomy and photonics. This burgeoning field has emerged over the past decade in response to the increasing demands of astronomical instrumentation. Early successes include: (i) planar waveguides to combine signals from widely spaced telescopes in stellar interferometry; (ii) frequency combs for ultra-high precision spectroscopy to detect planets around nearby stars; (iii) ultra-broadband fibre Bragg gratings to suppress unwanted background; (iv) photonic lanterns that allow single-mode behaviour within a multimode fibre; (v) planar waveguides to miniaturize astronomical spectrographs; (vi) large mode area fibres to generate artificial stars in the upper atmosphere for adaptive optics correction; (vii) liquid crystal polymers in optical vortex coronographs and adaptive optics systems. Astrophotonics, a field that has already created new photonic capabilities, is now extending its reach down to the Rayleigh scattering limit at ultraviolet wavelengths, and out to mid infrared wavelengths beyond 2500 nm.
Highlights
Astrophotonics lies at the interface of astronomy and photonics
Modern astronomy is on the verge of another revolution
Adaptive optics (AO) has been demonstrated successfully on existing telescopes and is hardwired into the design of extremely large telescopes (ELT). This revolution in telescope imaging will provide a major gain in sensitivity, but it will lead to greatly improved coupling into photonic devices at the telescope focus (Corbett, this issue)
Summary
Modern astronomy is on the verge of another revolution. The largest optical/infrared telescopes, with diameters up to 10m, are soon to be overtaken by 25-42m behemoths. Adaptive optics (AO) has been demonstrated successfully on existing telescopes and is hardwired into the design of ELTs. Adaptive optics (AO) has been demonstrated successfully on existing telescopes and is hardwired into the design of ELTs This revolution in telescope imaging will provide a major gain in sensitivity, but it will lead to greatly improved coupling into photonic devices at the telescope focus (Corbett, this issue). This fact more than any other will ensure the long-term development of astrophotonics
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