Demonstration of a photonic lantern low order wavefront sensor using an adaptive optics testbed

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a photonic lantern-based low order wavefront sensor that can measure tip/tilt errors and stabilize the input PSF in adaptive optics systems, showing promising simulation results for improved throughput and noise reduction.

Contribution

It introduces an optimized 5-core photonic lantern for simultaneous tip/tilt measurement and instrument feeding, enhancing adaptive optics performance.

Findings

Tip/tilt measurements are linear within +/- 55 mas.

The PL matches SM fiber throughput at 1.55 microns in one configuration.

Using all cores increases throughput and reduces modal noise.

Abstract

We demonstrate the use of an optimized 5 core photonic lantern (PL) to simultaneously measure tip/tilt errors at the telescope focal plane, while also providing the input to an instrument. By replacing a single mode (SM) fiber with the PL we show that it is possible to stabilize the input PSF to an instrument due to non-common path tip/tilt aberrations in an adaptive optics system. We show the PL in two different regimes, (i) using only the outer cores for tip/tilt measurements while feeding an instrument with the central core and, (ii) using all cores to measure tip/tilt when used in an instrument such as a spectrograph. In simulations our PL displays the ability to retrieve tip/tilt measurements in a linear range of +/- 55 milliarcseconds. At the designed central wavelength of 1.55 microns, configuration (i) matches the throughput of an on-axis SM fiber but declines as we move away from this wavelength. In configuration (ii) we make use of the whole multimode input of the PL resulting in a potential increase of overall throughput compared to a SM fiber, while eliminating modal noise.