Optical requirements for a Terrestrial Planet Finder optical coronagraph primary mirror

Stephen E. Kendrick; Roger Linfield; Dennis Ebbets

doi:10.1117/12.506406

19 November 2003 Optical requirements for a Terrestrial Planet Finder optical coronagraph primary mirror

Stephen E. Kendrick, Roger Linfield, Dennis Ebbets

Proceedings Volume 5170, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.506406
Event: Optical Science and Technology, SPIE's 48th Annual Meeting, 2003, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

One possible implementation of an optical coronagraphic approach to finding exo-solar planets incorporates a large, monolithic primary mirror (PM) that is approximately 4 meters by 10 meters in size. The optical requirements on a mirror that is part of a suppression system to achieve at least 10¹⁰ rejection are extremely challenging, and a series of pathfinder demonstrations and testbeds are warranted. We examine the optical manufacturing and tolerancing requirements on the mirror itself as a function of spatial frequency where in certain regimes we desire better than 1/1000^th of a wave surface accuracy. An atypical requirement is also imposed on the optical coatings where the uniformity of reflectance is desired to be a few parts in 10,000. In addition, we present an optical design for a sub-scale coronagraphic testbed as an essential step in examining the system sensitivities.

Citation Download Citation

Stephen E. Kendrick, Roger Linfield, and Dennis Ebbets "Optical requirements for a Terrestrial Planet Finder optical coronagraph primary mirror", Proc. SPIE 5170, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets, (19 November 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.506406

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