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Starshades are a leading technology to enable the detection and spectroscopiccharacterization of Earth-like exoplanets. In this paper we report on opticalexperiments of sub-scale starshades that advance critical starlight suppressiontechnologies in preparation for the next generation of space telescopes. Theseexperiments were conducted at the Princeton starshade testbed, an 80 m longenclosure testing 1/1000th scale starshades at a flight-like Fresnel number. Wedemonstrate 1e-10 contrast at the starshade's geometric inner working angleacross 10% of the visible spectrum, with an average contrast at the innerworking angle of 2.0e-10 and contrast floor of 2e-11. In addition to these highcontrast demonstrations, we validate diffraction models to better than 35%accuracy through tests of intentionally flawed starshades. Overall, this suiteof experiments reveals a deviation from scalar diffraction theory due to lightpropagating through narrow gaps between the starshade petals. We provide amodel that accurately captures this effect at contrast levels below 1e-10. Theresults of these experiments demonstrate that there are no optical impedimentsto building a starshade that provides sufficient contrast to detect Earth-likeexoplanets. This work also sets an upper limit on the effect of unknowns in thediffraction model used to predict starshade performance and set tolerances onthe starshade manufacture.

Optical Verification Experiments of Sub-scale Starshades