Cassiop\'ee, towards technological development for XAO on ELT: the e-APD infrared detector

TL;DR

The paper discusses the development of a fast, high-resolution infrared e-APD camera for advanced adaptive optics in extremely large telescopes, aiming to enable direct imaging of Earth-like exoplanets.

Contribution

It introduces the design and development of a new 512x512 e-APD infrared camera for wavefront sensing in ELT adaptive optics systems.

Findings

Successful integration of 512x512 Leonardo e-APD array

Addressed challenges in autonomous operation and vibration control

Enhanced imaging contrast capabilities for exoplanet detection

Abstract

The Cassiop\'ee project aims to develop the key technologies that will be used to deploy very high-performance Adaptive Optics for future ELTs. The ultimate challenge is to detect earth-like planets and characterize the composition of their atmosphere. For this, imaging contrasts of the order of 109 are required, implying a leap forward in adaptive optics performance, with high density deformable mirrors (120x120 actuators), low-noise cameras and the control of the loop at few kHz. The project brings together 2 industrial partners: First Light Imaging and ALPAO, and 2 academic partners: ONERA and LAM, who will work together to develop a new camera for wavefront sensing, a new deformable mirror and their implementation in an adaptive optics loop. This paper will present the development of the fast large infrared e-APD camera which will be used in the wavefront sensor of the system. The camera will integrate the latest 512x512 Leonardo e-APD array and will benefit from the heritage of the first-light imaging's C-RED One camera. The most important challenges for the application are the autonomous operation, vibration control, background limitation, compactness, acquisition speed and latency.