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Title: Demonstration of high-efficiency photonic lantern couplers for PolyOculus

The PolyOculus technology produces large-area-equivalent telescopes by using fiber optics to link modules of multiple semi-autonomous, small, inexpensive, commercial-off-the-shelf telescopes. Crucially, this scalable design has construction costs that are><#comment/>10×<#comment/>lower than equivalent traditional large-area telescopes. We have developed a novel, to the best of our knowledge, photonic lantern approach for the PolyOculus fiber optic linkages that potentially offers substantial advantages over previously considered free-space optical linkages, including much higher coupling efficiencies. We have carried out the first laboratory tests of a photonic lantern prototype developed for PolyOculus, and demonstrated broadband efficiencies of∼<#comment/>91%<#comment/>, confirming the outstanding performance of this technology.

 
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Award ID(s):
1711230
NSF-PAR ID:
10249702
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Optical Society of America
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Applied Optics
Volume:
60
Issue:
19
ISSN:
1559-128X; APOPAI
Page Range / eLocation ID:
Article No. D93
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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