First high dynamic range and high resolution images of the sky obtained with a diffractive Fresnel array telescope

Abstract

This paper presents high contrast images of sky sources, obtained from the ground with a novel optical concept: Fresnel arrays. We demonstrate the efficiency of a small 20 cm prototype Fresnel array for making images with high brightness ratios, achieving contrasts up to 4 × 105 on sky sources such as Mars and its satellites, and the Sirius A–B couple. These validation results are promising for future applications in space, for example the 4 m array we have proposed to ESA in the frame of the “Call for a Medium-size mission opportunity for a launch in 2022”. Fresnel imagers are the subject of a topical issue of Experimental Astronomy published in 2011, but only preliminary results were presented at the time. Making images of astronomical bodies requires an optical component to focus light. This component is usually a mirror or a lens, the quality of which is critical for sharp and high contrast images. However, reflection on a mirror and refraction through a lens are not the only ways to focus light: an alternative is provided by diffraction through binary masks (opaque foils with multiple precisely etched sub-apertures). Our Fresnel arrays are such diffractive focusers, they offer weight, price and size advantages over traditional optics in space-based astronomical instruments. This novel approach requires only void apertures of special shapes in an opaque material to form sharp images, thus avoiding the wavefront distortion, diffusion and spectral absorption associated with traditional optical media. In our setup, lenses and/or mirrors are involved only downstream (at small sizes) for focal instrumentation and chromatic correction. Fresnel arrays produce high contrast images, the resolution of which reaches the theoretical limit of diffraction. Unlike mirrors, they do not require high precision polishing or positioning, and can be used in a large domain of wavelengths from far IR to far UV, enabling the study of many science cases in astrophysics from exoplanet surfaces and atmospheres to galaxy evolution.