Paper
31 August 2005 Photon sieve telescope
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
The creation of next generation, ultra-large space telescopes (>20m diameter) will require novel technologies. Many current concepts involve curved membrane reflectors but the problem is creating a diffraction-limited, three-dimensional surface. Here we present the idea of using a flat diffractive element which requires no out-of-plane deformation and is thus much simpler to deploy. The primary is a photon sieve--a diffractive element consisting of a large number of precisely positioned holes distributed over a flat surface. Photon sieves can be simply designed to any conic, apodization and operating bandwidth. The photon sieve is easier to fabricate than the better known Fresnel zone plate as a single substrate can be used since there are no connected regions requiring support. Presented here are results of prototypes capable of diffraction-limited imaging over wide fields and useful bandwidths.
© (2005) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Geoff Andersen "Photon sieve telescope", Proc. SPIE 5899, UV/Optical/IR Space Telescopes: Innovative Technologies and Concepts II, 58990T (31 August 2005); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.613023
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CITATIONS
Cited by 3 scholarly publications and 2 patents.
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KEYWORDS
Space telescopes

Diffractive optical elements

Diffraction

Telescopes

Zone plates

Chemical elements

Dispersion

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