Ultrafast laser inscription: an enabling technology for astrophotonics

TL;DR

This paper discusses ultrafast laser inscription as a promising technology for creating three-dimensional photonic devices, enabling advanced astrophotonics applications like highly-multiplexed spectroscopy and miniaturized spectrographs for large telescopes.

Contribution

It introduces ultrafast laser inscription as an effective method for fabricating 3D photonic devices tailored for astrophotonics, highlighting its advantages over existing techniques.

Findings

ULI enables precise 3D photonic device fabrication.

ULI improves light collection efficiency for telescopic applications.

ULI facilitates miniaturization of spectrographs for astronomy.

Abstract

The application of photonics to astronomy offers major advantages in the area of highly-multiplexed spectroscopy, especially when applied to extremely large telescopes. These include the suppression of the near-infrared night-sky spectrum [J. Bland-Hawthorn et al, Opt. Express 12, 5902 (2004), S. G. Leon-Saval et al, Opt. Lett. 30, 2545 (2005)] and the miniaturisation of spectrographs so that they may integrated into the light-path of individual spatial samples [J. Bland-Hawthorn et al, Proc SPIE 6269, 62690N (2006)]. Efficient collection of light from the telescope requires multimode optical fibres and three-dimensional photonic devices. We propose ultrafast laser inscription (ULI) [R. R. Thomson et al, Opt. Express 15, 11691 (2007)] as the best technology to fabricate 3D photonic devices for astrophotonic applications.