The extreme and out of the ordinary sensitivity shared by the main gravitational waves detector like LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA has recently enabled to access to a new source of information for astronomy. However, future upgrades and new challenges continue to be addressed for reaching wider horizons of meas urable universe events through the gravitational waves. It leads to tighter and tighter specifications in several domains and in particular in the accuracy of the optics at the core of the detector.
For the optical surfaces of the critical optics of these detectors, the current specifications for instrumentations are not sufficient. For instance and concerning Advanced Virgo + critical mirrors (End Mirrors and Input Mirrors), the specification of their SFE (Surface Form error) is now reaching the accuracy level of one atom size, the angstrom, and for optical part up to 550 mm in diameter and 200 mm in thickness.
Besides this, the complete optical part is polished and shall have lateral reference surfaces that are at the level of usual specification of optical surfaces in astronomy.
Thales SESO is in charge of producing these uncommon optics and will present these extremely accurate optical parts, comparison of optical set-up performances as well as final performances.
After a brief introduction of the SDSS-V optical instrumentation installed at the Apache Point 2.5m telescope, the presentation will be mainly focused onto the optical production and testing of the 3 large lenses (diameter 700-800mm) constituting the wide field optical corrector (WFC). Special emphasis will be made onto the measurement issues and solutions of the deep aspherical surfaces as well as the review of the specific anti-reflection (AR) coating with development of a dual band anti-reflective coating, carried out by Thales SESO-France. Before concluding, a dedicated paragraph will address on-sky imaging performances results with this new WFC. The presentation will conclude by a brief overview of the corresponding existing “state of the art” at Thales SESO for future manufacturing of similar or large optics for next generation of very wide field corrector.
Over more than 50th years Thales SESO represent a world leading designer and manufacturer of high-end, optical components such as telescopes and satellite-based space observation optics operating over the entire spectral range from infrared to x-ray wavelengths. Since early 90th we are actively working in the EUV, Soft-X-ray and hard X-ray spectral range, by developing new equipment and introducing metrology innovations and brand new patented products such as bender and bimorphs mirrors (1st and 2nd generation). In particular a set of customized solution and integrated system for imaging and spectroscopy have been developed basing on the original Wolter and Kirckpatrick-Baez design. Few example of reflective optics behaving both, as collimator, focusing and imaging device are discussed in this paper. A set of solutions to realize fixed curvature optics and dynamically bended device will be detailed to illustrate the flexibility and performances of these products..
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