Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectroscopy and Energy-Resolving Detectors

Abstract

Imaging spectroscopy has seen rapid progress over the past 25 years, leading to breakthroughs in many fields of astronomy that would not have been otherwise possible. This review overviews the visible/infrared imaging spectroscopy techniques as well as energy-resolving detectors. We introduce the working principle of scanning Fabry-Perot and Fourier transform spectrometers and explain the most common integral field concepts based on mirror slicers, lenslet arrays, and fibers. The main advantage of integral field spectrographs is the simultaneous measurement of spatial and spectral information. Although Fabry-Perot and Fourier transform spectrometers can provide a larger field of view, it is ultimately the higher sensitivity of integral field units that make them the technique of choice. This is arguably the case for image slicers, which make the most efficient use of the available detector pixels and have equal or higher transmission than lenslet arrays and fiber integral field units, respectively. We also address the more specific issues of large étendue operation, focal ratio degradation, anamorphic magnification, and diffraction-limited operation. This review also covers the emerging technology of energy-resolving detectors, which promise very simple and efficient instrument designs. These energy-resolving detectors are based on superconducting thin film technology and exploit either the very small superconducting energy to count the number of quasi-particles excited in the absorption of the photon or the extremely steep phase transition between the normal- and superconducting phase to measure a temperature increase. We have put special emphasis on an overview of the underlying physical phenomena as well as on the recent technological progress and astronomical path finder experiments.