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This paper describes Flare Sentinel, a compact integral field spectrograph (IFS) for the study of the hydrogen Balmer series spectrum from 350 to 450 nm of solar flare from space. Flare Sentinel IFS is based on a new Machined Image Slicer Compact Spectrograph Array (MICS) design. MICS consists of an image slicer that divides a continuous 2D spatial field formed by an imaging system into multiple narrow slices, and an array of miniature spectrographs, each forming the spectra of one of the slices of the 2D field. The spectra formed by all the miniature spectrographs can be projected on a common 2D focal plane to be recorded by an image sensors. The spectra can also be distributed to multiple focal planes and recorded simultaneously by multiple sensors to increase the instantaneous hyperspectral field of view of the instrument. New image slicers with slit width of 36 um and 20 um have been successfully fabricated using Canon Inc.’s ultra-precision diamond-cutting CNC mill. This capability is enabling design and fabrication of IFSs with imaging format of 102 × 102 , and spectral resolution between 100 < R < 10, 000 in a very compact package. We will present the optical design and the optical hardware of a prototype IFS that has been fabricated. 

With the advancements of ultra-high-precision micro-optics fabrication technologies, it is now possible to fabricate integral field units (IFUs) with slicer mirror width of 30 m or less. This paper describes a 36-um machined image slicer IFU (MISI-36) for the Diffraction-Limited near-IR Spectropolarimeter (DL-NIRSP) of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST). MISI-36 has a unique 2-section image slicer design, and is consists of a monolithic image slicer block with 112 micro slicer mirrors, a parabolic collimator, a monolithic flat mirror array consists of 112 fold mirrors, and a monolithic spherical mirror array consists of 112 spherical mirrors. We have successfully fabricated a prototype device using Canon Inc.’s diamond-cutting CNC, and conducted a preliminary performance evaluation using an experimental bench-top spectrograph similar to the spectrograph of DL-NIRSP. We will present the optical design and optical performances of the MISI-36 prototype.