On the modal throughput of photonic lanterns in the presence of partial adaptive optic correction
Abstract
As compared to single-mode fibers (SMFs), photonic lanterns could ease the coupling of starlight to single-mode astrophotonic instruments. Here we investigate numerically the advantage of using lanterns as compared to SMFs for seeing-limited and low-order adaptive telescopes. We find the turbulence strength below which focal-ratio-matched photonic lanterns provide an average flux per output equal to that of a sole SMF. Lastly, we look into the advantage of having a low-order adaptive optics (AO) as a way of relaxing the demand on the lantern size and complexity.
- Publication:
-
Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation III
- Pub Date:
- July 2018
- DOI:
- 10.1117/12.2309657
- Bibcode:
- 2018SPIE10706E..4TD