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| Paper: |
A planar optics beam combiner for stellar interferometry |
| Volume: |
194, Working on the Fringe: Optical and IR Interferometry from Ground and Space |
| Page: |
337 |
| Authors: |
Haguenauer, P.; Rousselet-Perraut, K.; Kern, P.; Malbet, F.; Berger, J.-P.; Schanen-Duport, I.; Benech, P. |
| Abstract: |
This poster presents high contrast fringes obtained with a laboratory workbench using a planar optics two-telescope beam-combiner. Our beam-combiner is fully integrated on a single 5 mm x 25 mm glass chip. The single-mode waveguides are made by silver ion exchange technology with photo-lithography technics. It provides spatial filtering thanks to single-mode propagation. We report the laboratory characterizations of our beam-combiner, as integrated optics component and as a part of an astronomical instrument, performed with a two-telescope interferometer simulator. A global throughput of 46% has been estimated and the difference with the theoretical 75% throughput has been fully identified and detailed. Solutions to reach this theoretical value are proposed. High and stable contrasts have been obtained with a 1.55 μ laser diode (exceeding 96%) and with a white-light source through a H atmospheric filter (about 80%). The necessity of an accurate control of the differential instrumental polarization was demonstrated. In this background the intrinsic polarization-maintaining propertie of the integrated optics component was characterized. |
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