NEW EARTH Laboratory
Full testbed name
NEW EARTH Laboratory
Managing institution
National Research Council of Canada (Victoria, Canada)
Main scientific focus
The laboratory main focus is to develop new technologies for high-contrast imaging for exoplanet imaging and their spectral characterization, testing new advance adaptive optics solutions, higher performing coronagraphs, and KHz visible/NIR focal plane wavefront sensing techniques. The laboratory will deliver end-to-end solutions for upgrading current generation of facility-class instruments, and for future ground- or space-based instruments.
Environment of the testbed
Class 10,000 clean room.
Humidity/temperature control.
5'x10' floating air-cushion optical table. Building first floor.
Key hardware items
Infrared low noise C-RED2 camera
468 Alpao DM (baseline, will be using a 277 Alpao at first)
HASO
Lyot & vortex coronagraphs
custom self-coherent camera focal plane mask.
Current status
Assembling May/June 2018.
Reference papers
Upgrading the Gemini Planet Imager calibration unit with a photon counting focal plane wavefront sensor, Marois et al. 2020
Optical design and preliminary results of NEW EARTH, first Canadian high-contrast imaging laboratory test bench, Lardière et al. 2020