Self-Nulling Beam Combiner Using No External Phase Inverter

A self-nulling beam combiner is proposed that completely eliminates the phase inversion subsystem from the nulling interferometer, and instead uses the intrinsic phase shifts in the beam splitters. Simplifying the flight instrument in this way will be a valuable enhancement of mission reliability. The tighter tolerances on R = T (R being reflection and T being transmission coefficients) required by the self-nulling configuration actually impose no new constraints on the architecture, as two adaptive nullers must be situated between beam splitters to correct small errors in the coatings. The new feature is exploiting the natural phase shifts in beam combiners to achieve the 180 phase inversion necessary for nulling. The advantage over prior art is that an entire subsystem, the field-flipping optics, can be eliminated. For ultimate simplicity in the flight instrument, one might fabricate coatings to very high tolerances and dispense with the adaptive nullers altogether, with all their moving parts, along with the field flipper subsystem. A single adaptive nuller upstream of the beam combiner may be required to correct beam train errors (systematic noise), but in some circumstances phase chopping reduces these errors substantially, and there may be ways to further reduce the chop residuals. Though such coatings are beyond the current state of the art, the mechanical simplicity and robustness of a flight system without field flipper or adaptive nullers would perhaps justify considerable effort on coating fabrication

On Calculating the Zero-Gravity Surface Figure of a Mirror

An analysis of the classical method of calculating the zero-gravity surface figure of a mirror from surface-figure measurements in the presence of gravity has led to improved understanding of conditions under which the calculations are valid. In this method, one measures the surface figure in two or more gravity- reversed configurations, then calculates the zero-gravity surface figure as the average of the surface figures determined from these measurements. It is now understood that gravity reversal is not, by itself, sufficient to ensure validity of the calculations: It is also necessary to reverse mounting forces, for which purpose one must ensure that mountingfixture/ mirror contacts are located either at the same places or else sufficiently close to the same places in both gravity-reversed configurations. It is usually not practical to locate the contacts at the same places, raising the question of how close is sufficiently close. The criterion for sufficient closeness is embodied in the St. Venant principle, which, in the present context, translates to a requirement that the distance between corresponding gravity-reversed mounting positions be small in comparison to their distances to the optical surface of the mirror. The necessity of reversing mount forces is apparent in the behavior of the equations familiar from finite element analysis (FEA) that govern deformation of the mirror

Transverse Pupil Shifts for Adaptive Optics Non-Common Path Calibration

A simple new way of obtaining absolute wavefront measurements with a laboratory Fizeau interferometer was recently devised. In that case, the observed wavefront map is the difference of two cavity surfaces, those of the mirror under test and of an unknown reference surface on the Fizeau s transmission flat. The absolute surface of each can be determined by applying standard wavefront reconstruction techniques to two grids of absolute surface height differences of the mirror under test, obtained from pairs of measurements made with slight transverse shifts in X and Y. Adaptive optics systems typically provide an actuated periscope between wavefront sensor (WFS) and commonmode optics, used for lateral registration of deformable mirror (DM) to WFS. This periscope permits independent adjustment of either pupil or focal spot incident on the WFS. It would be used to give the required lateral pupil motion between common and non-common segments, analogous to the lateral shifts of the two phase contributions in the lab Fizeau. The technique is based on a completely new approach to calibration of phase. It offers unusual flexibility with regard to the transverse spatial frequency scales probed, and will give results quite quickly, making use of no auxiliary equipment other than that built into the adaptive optics system. The new technique may be applied to provide novel calibration information about other optical systems in which the beam may be shifted transversely in a controlled way

A Broad-Band Phase-Contrast Wave-Front Sensor

A broadband phase-contrast wave-front sensor has been proposed as a real-time wave-front sensor in an adaptive-optics system. The proposed sensor would offer an alternative to the Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensors now used in high-order adaptive-optics systems of some astronomical telescopes. Broadband sensing gives higher sensitivity than does narrow-band sensing, and it appears that for a given bandwidth, the sensitivity of the proposed phase-contrast sensor could exceed that of a Shack-Hartmann sensor. Relative to a Shack-Hartmann sensor, the proposed sensor may be optically and mechanically simpler. As described below, an important element of the principle of operation of a phase-contrast wave-front sensor is the imposition of a 90deg phase shift between diffracted and undiffracted parts of the same light beam. In the proposed sensor, this phase shift would be obtained by utilizing the intrinsic 90 phase shift between the transmitted and reflected beams in an ideal (thin, symmetric) beam splitter. This phase shift can be characterized as achromatic or broadband because it is 90deg at every wavelength over a broad wavelength range

Extracting Zero-Gravity Surface Figure of a Mirror

The technical innovation involves refinement of the classic optical technique of averaging surface measurements made in different orientations with respect to gravity, so the effects of gravity cancel in the averaged image. Particularly for large, thin mirrors subject to substantial deformation, the further requirement is that mount forces must also cancel when averaged over measurement orientations. The zerogravity surface figure of a mirror in a hexapod mount is obtained by analyzing the summation of mount forces in the frame of the optic as surface metrology is averaged over multiple clockings. This is illustrated with measurements taken from the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) PT-Ml mirror for both twofold and threefold clocking. The positive results of these measurements and analyses indicate that, from this perspective, a lighter mirror could be used; that is, one might place less reliance on the damping effects of the elliptic partial differential equations that describe the propagation of forces through glass. The advantage over prior art is relaxing the need for an otherwise substantial thickness of glass that might be needed to ensure accurate metrology in the absence of a detailed understanding and analysis of the mount forces. The general insights developed here are new, and provide the basic design principles on which mirror mount geometry may be chosen

Knowledge sharing in an Emerging Network of Practice: The Role of a Knowledge Portal

This article addresses the emergence of networks of practice and the role of knowledge sharing via knowledge portals. Its focus is on factors that stimulate the successful emergence of networks of practice. Literature on knowledge management and communities of practice suggest the preexistence of shared knowledge or a shared believe system as a condition sine qua non for the networks of practice to emerge. We challenge this assumption and argue and demonstrate that common knowledge and believe systems are rather a result of knowledge sharing instead of a pre-condition. The central question is how a knowledge portal facilitates the diffusion of knowledge among rather loosely coupled and often disconnected innovation projects. Research is carried out in the agricultural industry in the Netherlands. In this industry there is a need to change from a product-oriented to a problemoriented innovation structure. The set up of a platform and knowledge portal around agro-logistics – crossing different product-oriented production clusters – was therefore a logical result. It gave the opportunity to analyze what the impact of a knowledge portal is in a situation that people and projects come from different organizations that do not know each other. Do they start to share knowledge and what are the conditions? With regard to the case study of the knowledge portal in the agricultural industry we conclude that a knowledge portal will have an impact on how projects are sharing knowledge and on the emergence of a network of practice. The results show that preconditions for the emergence of a network of practice are sense of urgency and fragmented awareness. These results also indicate the important role of a knowledge broker. The developed knowledge portal seems to lead to overcoming structural holes and a closer cognitive distance among the projects. However, we did not find a direct effect of the knowledge portal on sharing tacit knowledge. In the initial phase of a network of practice the knowledge exchange seems to focus on general, non-project specific and explicit knowledge. There was also no direct effect of the knowledge portal on the reciprocity of knowledge exchange among the projects. However, knowledge was shared between the project level and the platform and public level. Conclusions and directions for future research are formulated

Designing and Evaluating Sustainable Logistics Networks

The objective in this paper is to shed light into the design of logistic networks balancing profit and the environment. More specifically we intend to i) determine the main factors influencing environmental performance and costs in logistic networks ii) present a comprehensive framework and mathematical formulation, based on multiobjective programming, integrating all relevant variables in order to explore efficient logistic network configurations iii) present the expected computational results of such formulation and iv) introduce a technique to evaluate the efficiency of existing logistic networks.The European Pulp and Paper Industry will be used to illustrate our findings

Telescope Alignment From Sparsely Sampled Wavefront Measurements Over Pupil Subapertures

Alignment of two-element telescopes is a classic problem. During recent integration and test of the Space Interferometry Mission s (SIM s) Astrometric Beam Combiner (ABC), the innovators were faced with aligning two such telescope subsystems in the presence of a further complication: only two small subapertures in each telescope s pupil were accessible for measuring the wavefront with a Fizeau interferometer. This meant that the familiar aberrations that might be interpreted to infer system misalignments could be viewed only over small sub-regions of the pupil, making them hard to recognize. Further, there was no contiguous surface of the pupil connecting these two subapertures, so relative phase piston information was lost; the underlying full-aperture aberrations therefore had an additional degree of ambiguity. The solution presented here is to recognize that, in the absence of phase piston, the Zygo measurements primarily provide phase tilt in the subaperture windows of interest. Because these windows are small and situated far from the center of the (inaccessible) unobscured full aperture, any aberrations that are higher-order than tilt will be extremely high-order on the full aperture, and so not necessary or helpful to the alignment. Knowledge of the telescope s optical prescription allows straightforward evaluation of sensitivities (subap mode strength per unit full-aperture aberration), and these can be used in a predictive matrix approach to move with assurance to an aligned state. The technique is novel in every operational way compared to the standard approach of alignment based on full-aperture aberrations or searching for best rms wavefront. This approach is closely grounded in the observable quantities most appropriate to the problem. It is also more intuitive than inverting full phase maps (or subaperture Zernike spectra) with a ray-tracing program, which must certainly work in principle, but in practice met with limited success. Even if such classical alignment techniques became practical, the techniques reported here form a reassuringly transparent and intuitive check on the course of the alignment with very little computational effort

The Micro-Arcsecond Metrology Testbed

The Micro-Arcsecond Metrology (MAM) testbed is a ground-based system of optical and electronic equipment for testing components, systems, and engineering concepts for the Space Interferometer Mission (SIM) and similar future missions, in which optical interferometers will be operated in outer space. In addition, the MAM testbed is of interest in its own right as a highly precise metrological system. The designs of the SIM interferometer and the MAM testbed reflect a requirement to measure both the position of the starlight central fringe and the change in the internal optical path of the interferometer with sufficient spatial resolution to generate astrometric data with angular resolution at the microarcsecond level. The internal path is to be measured by use of a small metrological laser beam of 1,319-nm wavelength, whereas the position of the starlight fringe is to be estimated by use of a charge-coupled-device (CCD) image detector sampling a large concentric annular beam. For the SIM to succeed, the optical path length determined from the interferometer fringes must be tracked by the metrological subsystem to within tens of picometers, through all operational motions of an interferometer delay line and siderostats. The purpose of the experiments performed on the MAM testbed is to demonstrate this agreement in a large-scale simulation that includes a substantial portion of the system in the planned configuration for operation in outer space. A major challenge in this endeavor is to align the metrological beam with the starlight beam in order to maintain consistency between the metrological and starlight subsystems at the system level. The MAM testbed includes an optical interferometer with a white light source, all major optical components of a stellar interferometer, and heterodyne metrological sensors. The aforementioned subsystems are installed in a large vacuum chamber in order to suppress atmospheric and thermal disturbances. The MAM is divided into two distinct subsystems: the test article (TA), which is the interferometer proper, and the inverse interferometer pseudo-star (IIPS), which synthesizes the light coming from a distant target star by providing spatially coherent wavefronts out of two mirrors, separated by the MAM baseline, that feed directly into two siderostats that are parts of the TA. The two feed mirrors of the IIPS are articulated (in translation and tilt) in order to simulate stars located at different orientations in space, while still illuminating the TA siderostats. The spectrum of the simulated starlight of the IIPS corresponds to that of a blackbody at a temperature of about 3,100 K

Speckle Noise in Highly Corrected Coronagraphs

Speckles in a highly corrected adaptive optic imaging system have been studied through numerical simulations and through analytic and algebraic investigations of the Fourier-optical expressions connecting pupil plane and focal plane, which simplify at high Strehl ratio. Significant insights into the behavior of speckles, and the speckle noise caused when they vary over time, have thus been gained. Such speckle noise is expected to set key limits on the sensitivity of searches for companions around other stars, including extrasolar planets. In most cases, it is advantageous to use a coronagraph of some kind to suppress the bright primary star and so enhance the dynamic range of companion searches. In the current paper, I investigate speckle behavior and its impact on speckle noise in some common coronagraphic architectures, including the classical Lyot coronagraph and the new four quadrant phase mask (FQPM) concept