The Large Fiber Array Spectroscopic Telescope: fiber feed fabrication and characterization

Sonja O. T. Choi; Roger Angel; Chad Bender; Joel Berkson; Erich Bugueno; Gilberto Chavez-Lopez; James Dibelka; Nick Didato; John Ford; Warren Foster; Nestor Garcia; Kevin Gilliam; Peter Gray; Samuel Halverson; Yiyang Huang; Dean Ketelsen; Daewook Kim; Andy Monson; Chang-Jin Oh; Jason Patrou; Christian Schwab; Melanie Sisco; Richard Wortley; Andrew Young

doi:10.1117/12.3019273

18 July 2024 The Large Fiber Array Spectroscopic Telescope: fiber feed fabrication and characterization

Sonja O. T. Choi, Roger Angel, Chad Bender, Joel Berkson, Erich Bugueno, Gilberto Chavez-Lopez, James Dibelka, Nick Didato, John Ford, Warren Foster, Nestor Garcia, Kevin Gilliam, Peter Gray, Samuel Halverson, Yiyang Huang, Dean Ketelsen, Daewook Kim, Andy Monson, Chang-Jin Oh, Jason Patrou, Christian Schwab, Melanie Sisco, Richard Wortley, Andrew Young

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 13096, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy X; 130965V (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3019273
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2024, Yokohama, Japan

Conference Poster

Abstract

The Large Fiber Array Spectroscopic Telescope (LFAST) project seeks to construct large arrays of small, individual fiber-fed telescopes for very high resolution spectroscopy. We are currently developing a prototype of a 20× telescope to investigate the technical requirements for LFAST. For each unit telescope, the 0.76 m primary mirror operates at f/3.5, focusing light onto our fused silica fiber with an 18 μm core, which subtends 1.4” on the sky. This receiving fiber collects and transmits light to the entrance slit of the spectrograph. We are developing a reliable fiber fabrication recipe, including fiber-end termination and polishing, to ensure consistency, efficiency, and affordability in mass manufacturing of the thousands of fibers that the future LFAST arrays require. The 18 μm core size places our optical fiber in the “few-mode” regime, which is not widely used in astronomy. Since the properties of “few-mode” fibers are not yet well characterized, extensive testing is required to gain a comprehensive understanding of their behaviors, such as focal ratio degradation, throughput and modal scrambling. We are designing optical tests to study the optical properties of the LFAST custom fibers. In this paper, we present the fiber feed design and fabrication recipe of our prototype. We also outline our optical test procedures and report results on surface flatness of our fibers.

(2024) Published by SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

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Sonja O. T. Choi, Roger Angel, Chad Bender, Joel Berkson, Erich Bugueno, Gilberto Chavez-Lopez, James Dibelka, Nick Didato, John Ford, Warren Foster, Nestor Garcia, Kevin Gilliam, Peter Gray, Samuel Halverson, Yiyang Huang, Dean Ketelsen, Daewook Kim, Andy Monson, Chang-Jin Oh, Jason Patrou, Christian Schwab, Melanie Sisco, Richard Wortley, and Andrew Young "The Large Fiber Array Spectroscopic Telescope: fiber feed fabrication and characterization", Proc. SPIE 13096, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy X, 130965V (18 July 2024); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3019273

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