Open AccessSampling of the telescope image plane using single- and few-mode fibre arrays
Author(s) -
Jason Corbett
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.17.001885
Subject(s) - optics , point spread function , cardinal point , single mode optical fiber , telescope , starlight , physics , sampling (signal processing) , transmission (telecommunications) , coupling (piping) , field of view , materials science , optical fiber , detector , computer science , telecommunications , stars , astronomy , metallurgy
The coupling efficiency of starlight into single and few-mode fibres fed with lenslet arrays to provide a continuous field of view is investigated. The single-mode field of view (FOV) and overall transmission is a highly complicated function of wavelength and fibre size leading to a continuous sample only in cases of poor throughput. Significant improvements are found in the few-mode regime with a continuous and efficient sample of the image plane shown to be possible with as few as 4 modes. This work is of direct relevance to the coupling of celestial light into photonic instrumentation and the removal of image scrambling and reduction of focal ratio degradation (FRD) using multi-mode fibre to single-mode fibre array converters.