Exoplanet Imaging with a Phase-induced Amplitude Apodization Coronagraph III. Hybrid Approach: Optical Design and Diffraction Analysis

TL;DR

This paper proposes a hybrid optical design combining classical apodization with phase-induced amplitude apodization (PIAA) to improve exoplanet imaging, achieving high contrast and broadband performance with manufacturable optics.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid system that overcomes manufacturing and diffraction challenges of PIAA coronagraphs, maintaining high contrast and broadband capabilities.

Findings

Achieves $10^{-10}$ PSF contrast at 1.5 λ/D

Maintains performance over the visible spectrum

Optics shapes are within current manufacturing capabilities

Abstract

Properly apodized pupils can deliver point spread functions (PSFs) free of Airy rings, and are suitable for high dynamical range imaging of extrasolar terrestrial planets (ETPs). To reach this goal, classical pupil apodization (CPA) unfortunately requires most of the light gathered by the telescope to be absorbed, resulting in poor throughput and low angular resolution. Phase-induced amplitude apodization (PIAA) of the telescope pupil (Guyon 2003) combines the advantages of classical pupil apodization (particularly low sensitivity to low order aberrations) with full throughput, no loss of angular resolution and little chromaticity, which makes it, theoretically, an extremely attractive coronagraph for direct imaging of ETPs. The two most challenging aspects of this technique are (1) the difficulty to polish the required optics shapes and (2) diffraction propagation effects which, because of their chromaticity, can decrease the spectral bandwidth of the coronagraph. We show that a properly designed hybrid system combining classical apodization with the PIAA technique can solve both problems simultaneously. For such a system, the optics shapes can be well within today's optics manufacturing capabilities, and the $10^{-10}$ PSF contrast at $\approx 1.5 \lambda/D$ required for efficient imaging of ETPs can be maintained over the whole visible spectrum. This updated design of the PIAA coronagraph maintains the high performance of the earlier design, since only a small part of the light is lost in the classical apodizer(s).