Polymer electrolytes consist of salts dissolved in polymers (for example, polyethylene oxide, PEO), and represent a unique class of solid coordination compounds. They have potential applications in a diverse range of all-solid-state devices, such as rechargeable lithium batteries, flexible electrochromic displays and smart windows. For 30 years, attention was focused on amorphous polymer electrolytes in the belief that crystalline polymer:salt complexes were insulators. This view has been overturned recently by demonstrating ionic conductivity in the crystalline complexes PEO6:LiXF6 (X = P, As, Sb); however, the conductivities were relatively low. Here we demonstrate an increase of 1.5 orders of magnitude in the conductivity of these materials by replacing a small proportion of the XF6- anions in the crystal structure with isovalent N(SO2CF3)2- ions. We suggest that the larger and more irregularly shaped anions disrupt the potential around the Li+ ions, thus enhancing the ionic conductivity in a manner somewhat analogous to the AgBr(1-x)I(x) ionic conductors. The demonstration that doping strategies can enhance the conductivity of crystalline polymer electrolytes represents a significant advance towards the technological exploitation of such materials.

We present L'-band imaging of the PDS 70 planetary system with Keck/NIRC2 using the new infrared pyramid wave front sensor. We detected both PDS 70 b and c in our images, as well as the front rim of the circumstellar disk. After subtracting off a model of the disk, we measured the astrometry and photometry of both planets. Placing priors based on the dynamics of the system, we estimated PDS 70 b to have a semimajor axis of-+ 20 4 3 au and PDS 70 c to have a semimajor axis of-+ 34 6 12 au (95% credible interval). We fit the spectral energy distribution (SED) of both planets. For PDS 70 b, we were able to place better constraints on the red half of its SED than previous studies and inferred the radius of the photosphere to be 2-3R Jup. The SED of PDS 70 c is less well constrained, with a range of total luminosities spanning an order of magnitude. With our inferred radii and luminosities, we used evolutionary models of accreting protoplanets to derive a mass of PDS 70 b between 2 and 4 M Jup and a mean mass accretion rate between 3×10 −7 and 8×10 −7 M Jup /yr. For PDS 70 c, we computed a mass between 1 and 3 M Jup and mean mass accretion rate between 1×10 −7 and 5×10 −7 M Jup /yr. The mass accretion rates imply dust accretion timescales short enough to hide strong molecular absorption features in both planets' SEDs. Unified Astronomy Thesaurus concepts: Exoplanet formation (492); Exoplanet atmospheres (487); Orbit determination (1175); Exoplanet dynamics (490); Coronagraphic imaging (313);

An optical vortex coronagraph has been implemented within the NIRC2 camera on the Keck II telescope and used to carry out on-sky tests and observations. The development of this new L'-band observational mode is described, and an initial demonstration of the new capability is presented: a resolved image of the low-mass companion to HIP79124, which had previously been detected by means of interferometry. With HIP79124 B at a projected separation of 186.5 mas, both the small inner working angle of the vortex coronagraph and the related imaging improvements were crucial in imaging this close companion directly. Due to higher Strehl ratios and more relaxed contrasts in L' band versus H band, this new coronagraphic capability will enable high-contrast small-angle observations of nearby young exoplanets and disks on a par with those of shorterwavelength extreme adaptive optics coronagraphs.

The Keck Planet Imager and Characterizer (KPIC) is a purpose-built instrument to demonstrate technological and instrumental concepts initially developed for the exoplanet direct imaging field. Located downstream of the current Keck II adaptive optic (AO) system, KPIC contains a fiber injection unit (FIU) capable of combining the high-contrast imaging capability of the AOs system with the high dispersion spectroscopy capability of the current Keck high resolution infrared spectrograph (NIRSPEC). Deployed at Keck in September 2018, this instrument has already been used to acquire high-resolution spectra (R > 30;000) of multiple targets of interest. In the near term, it will be used to spectrally characterize known directly imaged exoplanets and low-mass brown dwarf companions visible in the northern hemisphere with a spectral resolution high enough to enable spin and planetary radial velocity measurements as well as Doppler imaging of atmospheric weather phenomena. Here, we present the design of the FIU, the unique calibration procedures needed to operate a single-mode fiber instrument and the system performance. © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.

Using the Keck Planet Imager and Characterizer (KPIC), we obtained high-resolution (R∼35,000) K-band spectra of the four planets orbiting HR 8799. We clearly detected H 2 O and CO in the atmospheres of HR 8799 c, d, and e, and tentatively detected a combination of CO and H 2 O in b. These are the most challenging directly imaged exoplanets that have been observed at high spectral resolution to date when considering both their angular separations and flux ratios. We developed a forward modeling framework that allows us to jointly fit the spectra of the planets and the diffracted starlight simultaneously in a likelihood-based approach and obtained posterior probabilities on their effective temperatures, surface gravities, radial velocities, and spins. We measured v sin(i) values of