Next Gen Components for Exoplanet Detection and Characterization Technologies

Discovery of life beyond the Earth will have profound intellectual and spiritual impact on humanity.nbsp; NASA#39;s Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) will make this discovery but only if the technology to overcome the obstacles to making these observations continues to advance.nbsp; Exoplanets can be 10 billion times dimmer than their star making observations extraordinarily difficult.nbsp; Researchers around the country have gradually improved coronagraph designs and test beds working towards the goal of achieving 1E-10 contrast.nbsp; The PI of this proposal has delivered key components to researchers at NASA Ames, NASA GSFC, Space Telescope Science Institute, Caltech and the University of Notre Dame.nbsp; This includes reflective and transmissive apodizers patterned with carbon nanotubes that scavenge diffracted light from the stars which can swamp the light from the planet.nbsp; Carbon nanotubes are among the darkest materials ever fabricated and when applied to components enable new observations.nbsp; The apodizers have excellent wavefront error and throughput and are enabling technology.nbsp; This SBIR will fund additional improvements in apodizers including better reflective coatings, darker carbon nanotubes, improved patterning and enhanced characterization techniques.nbsp; Two dozen next generation apodizers will be delivered to collaborators at the institutions listed and at the Unversity of Arizona and University of California in Santa Cruz.nbsp; Other next generation components include carbon nanotube coated Lyot Stops and Focal Plane masks.nbsp; Next generation designs and components will drive improvements as our collaborators test coronagraph architectures and refine their models.nbsp; The variety of designs and improved coronagraph components will reduce risk to the HWO program by allowing a virtuous design, fabricate and test cycle to help determine the most promising path towards direct imaging of Exoplanets and characterization of their atmospheres.