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Completed TRL 3 (started at 2, targeting 3)
The technological advance that reduces the size and mass of an IR spectrograph for a future space mission is a high index-of refraction Germanium (Ge) immersion grating. To date, a Ge grating with adequate clarity, thermal stability, and geometric precision to serve as this key optical element within such an instrument has not been available. Two of these gratings were manufactured at Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) using funds from a 2016 CIF. Our plan was to obtain these gratings in FY16 with time to conduct optical tests in the lab. The procurement process for the elements required to fabricate the gratings consumed most of the year and the team focused instead on being ready to execute testing on our warm/cold optics bench in FY17. In this 2017 CIF, we plan to focus on three questions to demonstrate the feasibility of Ge Immersions Gratings for future space-based instruments: 1) Do current gratings deliver the spectral resolution required with line profiles free from ghosts? 2) Are Ge immersion gratings efficient enough to deliver ground-breaking new science from a small satellite? 3) Do the gratings and their optical coatings perform well at low temperatures required for IR instruments?
High-resolution infrared (IR) spectrographs are currently too large and heavy for use in space, above the interference of the Earth's atmosphere. This limits our ability to study key gas-phase molecules (such as H2O, CH4 and CO2) within interesting objects such as rotating proto- planetary disks. An IR spectrograph with a resolution of around 30,000 located in space would provide astronomers with a powerful tool to identify these gas molecules, define their abundance, determine their temperature, and evaluate their relative velocity within the object. High spectral resolution also enables improved study of star and planet formation, astro-chemistry, and will eventually be required to fully characterize the atmospheres of extra-solar planets. As a reference, the IR spectrograph that will operate on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has a planned maximum resolution of just 3000
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