@phdthesis{Diab2021,
  author    = {Diab, Momen},
  title     = {Enabling astrophotonics: adaptive optics and photonic lanterns for coupling starlight into the single-mode regime},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-53901},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-539012},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {xvii, 177},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {Ground-based astronomy is set to employ next-generation telescopes with apertures larger than 25 m in diameter before this decade is out. Such giant telescopes observe their targets through a larger patch of turbulent atmosphere, demanding that most of the instruments behind them must also grow larger to make full use of the collected stellar flux. This linear scaling in size greatly complicates the design of astronomical instrumentation, inflating their cost quadratically. Adaptive optics (AO) is one approach to circumvent this scaling law, but it can only be done to an extent before the cost of the corrective system itself overwhelms that of the instrument or even that of the telescope. One promising technique for miniaturizing the instruments and thus driving down their cost is to replace some, or all, of the free space bulk optics in the optical train with integrated photonic components. Photonic devices, however, do their work primarily in single-mode waveguides, and the atmospherically-distorted starlight must first be efficiently coupled into them if they are to outperform their bulk optic counterparts. This is doable by two means: AO systems can again help control the angular size and motion of seeing disks to the point where they will couple efficiently into astrophotonic components, but this is only feasible for the brightest of objects and over limited fields of view. Alternatively, tapered fiber devices known as photonic lanterns — with their ability to convert multimode into single-mode optical fields — can be used to feed speckle patterns into single-mode integrated optics. They, nonetheless, must conserve the degrees of freedom, and the number of output waveguides will quickly grow out of control for uncorrected large telescopes. An AO-assisted photonic lantern fed by a partially corrected wavefront presents a compromise that can have a manageable size if the trade-off between the two methods is chosen carefully. This requires end-to-end simulations that take into account all the subsystems upstream of the astrophotonic instrument, i.e., the atmospheric layers, the telescope, the AO system, and the photonic lantern, before a decision can be made on sizing the multiplexed integrated instrument. The numerical models that simulate atmospheric turbulence and AO correction are presented in this work. The physics and models for optical fibers, arrays of waveguides, and photonic lanterns are also provided. The models are on their own useful in understanding the behavior of the individual subsystems involved and are also used together to compute the optimum sizing of photonic lanterns for feeding astrophotonic instruments. Additionally, since photonic lanterns are a relatively new concept, two novel applications are discussed for them later in this thesis: the use of mode-selective photonic lanterns (MSPLs) to reduce the multiplicity of multiplexed integrated instruments and the combination of photonic lanterns with discrete beam combiners (DBCs) to retrieve the modal content in an optical waveguide.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{EllisBlandHawthornLawrenceetal.2012,
  author    = {Ellis, S. C. and Bland-Hawthorn, Joss and Lawrence, J. and Horton, A. J. and Trinh, C. and Leon-Saval, S. G. and Shortridge, K. and Bryant, J. and Case, S. and Colless, M. and Couch, W. and Freeman, K. and Gers, L. and Glazebrook, K. and Haynes, R. and Lee, S. and L{\"o}hmannsr{\"o}ben, Hans-Gerd and O'Byrne, J. and Miziarski, S. and Roth, M. and Schmidt, B. and Tinney, C. G. and Zheng, J.},
  title     = {Suppression of the near-infrared OH night-sky lines with fibre Bragg gratings - first results},
  series = {Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  volume    = {425},
  journal   = {Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  number    = {3},
  publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell},
  address   = {Hoboken},
  issn      = {0035-8711},
  doi       = {10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21602.x},
  pages     = {1682 -- 1695},
  year      = {2012},
  abstract  = {The background noise between 1 and 1.8 ?mu m in ground-based instruments is dominated by atmospheric emission from hydroxyl molecules. We have built and commissioned a new instrument, the Gemini Near-infrared OH Suppression Integral Field Unit (IFU) System (GNOSIS), which suppresses 103 OH doublets between 1.47 and 1.7?mu m by a factor of 1000 with a resolving power of 10?000. We present the first results from the commissioning of GNOSIS using the IRIS2 spectrograph at the Anglo-Australian Telescope. We present measurements of sensitivity, background and throughput. The combined throughput of the GNOSIS fore-optics, grating unit and relay optics is 36?per cent, but this could be improved to 46?per cent with a more optimal design. We measure strong suppression of the OH lines, confirming that OH suppression with fibre Bragg gratings will be a powerful technology for low-resolution spectroscopy. The integrated OH suppressed background between 1.5 and 1.7 mu m is reduced by a factor of 9 compared to a control spectrum using the same system without suppression. The potential of low-resolution OH-suppressed spectroscopy is illustrated with example observations of Seyfert galaxies and a low-mass star. The GNOSIS background is dominated by detector dark current below 1.67 mu m and by thermal emission above 1.67 mu m. After subtracting these, we detect an unidentified residual interline component of 860 +/- 210 photons s-1 m-2?arcsec-2?mu m-1, comparable to previous measurements. This component is equally bright in the suppressed and control spectra. We have investigated the possible source of the interline component, but were unable to discriminate between a possible instrumental artefact and intrinsic atmospheric emission. Resolving the source of this emission is crucial for the design of fully optimized OH suppression spectrographs. The next-generation OH suppression spectrograph will be focused on resolving the source of the interline component, taking advantage of better optimization for a fibre Bragg grating feed incorporating refinements of design based on our findings from GNOSIS. We quantify the necessary improvements for an optimal OH suppressing fibre spectrograph design.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{TrinhEllisBlandHawthornetal.2013,
  author    = {Trinh, Christopher Q. and Ellis, Simon C. and Bland-Hawthorn, Joss and Lawrence, Jon S. and Horton, Anthony J. and Leon-Saval, Sergio G. and Shortridge, Keith and Bryant, Julia and Case, Scott and Colless, Matthew and Couch, Warrick and Freeman, Kenneth and L{\"o}hmannsr{\"o}ben, Hans-Gerd and Gers, Luke and Glazebrook, Karl and Haynes, Roger and Lee, Steve and O'Byrne, John and Miziarski, Stan and Roth, Martin M. and Schmidt, Brian and Tinney, Christopher G. and Zheng, Jessica},
  title     = {Gnosis - the first instrument to use fiber bragg gratings for OH suppression},
  series = {The astronomical journal},
  volume    = {145},
  journal   = {The astronomical journal},
  number    = {2},
  publisher = {IOP Publ. Ltd.},
  address   = {Bristol},
  issn      = {0004-6256},
  doi       = {10.1088/0004-6256/145/2/51},
  pages     = {13},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {The near-infrared is an important part of the spectrum in astronomy, especially in cosmology because the light from objects in the early universe is redshifted to these wavelengths. However, deep near-infrared observations are extremely difficult to make from ground-based telescopes due to the bright background from the atmosphere. Nearly all of this background comes from the bright and narrow emission lines of atmospheric hydroxyl (OH) molecules. The atmospheric background cannot be easily removed from data because the brightness fluctuates unpredictably on short timescales. The sensitivity of ground-based optical astronomy far exceeds that of near-infrared astronomy because of this long-standing problem. GNOSIS is a prototype astrophotonic instrument that utilizes "OH suppression fibers" consisting of fiber Bragg gratings and photonic lanterns to suppress the 103 brightest atmospheric emission doublets between 1.47 and 1.7 mu m. GNOSIS was commissioned at the 3.9 m Anglo-Australian Telescope with the IRIS2 spectrograph to demonstrate the potential of OH suppression fibers, but may be potentially used with any telescope and spectrograph combination. Unlike previous atmospheric suppression techniques GNOSIS suppresses the lines before dispersion and in a manner that depends purely on wavelength. We present the instrument design and report the results of laboratory and on-sky tests from commissioning. While these tests demonstrated high throughput (approximate to 60\%) and excellent suppression of the skylines by the OH suppression fibers, surprisingly GNOSIS produced no significant reduction in the interline background and the sensitivity of GNOSIS+IRIS2 is about the same as IRIS2. It is unclear whether the lack of reduction in the interline background is due to physical sources or systematic errors as the observations are detector noise dominated. OH suppression fibers could potentially impact ground-based astronomy at the level of adaptive optics or greater. However, until a clear reduction in the interline background and the corresponding increasing in sensitivity is demonstrated optimized OH suppression fibers paired with a fiber-fed spectrograph will at least provide a real benefit at low resolving powers.},
  language  = {en}
}