Stabilizing a nulling interferometer at a nanometric level is the key issue to obtain deep null depths. The PERSEE breadboard has been designed to study and optimize the operation of cophased nulling bench in the most realistic disturbing environment of a space mission. This presentation focuses on the current results of the PERSEE bench. In terms of metrology, we cophased at 0.33 nm rms for the piston and 60 mas rms for the tip/tilt. A Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control coupled with an unsupervised vibration identification allows us to maintain that level of correction, even with characteristic vibrations of nulling interferometry space missions. These performances, with an accurate design and alignment of the bench, currently lead to a polychromatic unpolarised null depth of 8.9 × 10^-6 stabilized at 2.7 × 10^-7 on the [1.65 - 2.45] μm spectral band (37% bandwidth). With those significant results, we give the first more general lessons we have already learned from this experiment, both at system and component levels for a future space mission.

Date Published: 15 September 2011
PDF: 17 pages
Proc. SPIE 8151, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets V, 81510B (15 September 2011); doi: 10.1117/12.894275

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8151:
Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets V
Stuart Shaklan, Editor(s)