Development of an integrated near-IR astrophotonic spectrograph

TL;DR

This paper introduces a compact near-IR astrophotonic spectrograph using Arrayed-Waveguide-Grating technology, demonstrating its potential for miniaturized, high-resolution spectroscopy in astronomy.

Contribution

It presents a novel integrated photonic spectrograph design with proof of concept using a photonic lantern, enabling miniaturization for large telescope applications.

Findings

Spectrograph operates in the near-IR H-band with R=1500.

The setup is compact, roughly the size of a shoebox.

Proof of concept achieved with a photonic lantern feeding the AWG.

Abstract

Here, we present an astrophotonic spectrograph in the near-IR H-band (1.45 -1.65 $\mu m$) and a spectral resolution ($\lambda/\delta\lambda$) of 1500. The main dispersing element of the spectrograph is a photonic chip based on Arrayed-Waveguide-Grating technology. The 1D spectrum produced on the focal plane of the AWG contains overlapping spectral orders, each spanning a 10 nm band in wavelength. These spectral orders are cross-dispersed in the perpendicular direction using a cross-dispersion setup which consists of collimating lenses and a prism and the 2D spectrum is thus imaged onto a near-IR detector. Here, as a proof of concept, we use a few-mode photonic lantern to capture the light and feed the emanating single-mode outputs to the AWG chip for dispersion. The total size of the setup is 50$\times$30$\times$20 cm$^3$, nearly the size of a shoebox. This spectrograph will pave the way for future miniaturized integrated photonic spectrographs on large telescopes, particularly for building future photonic multi-object spectrographs.