MIRAC-5: a ground-based mid-IR instrument with the potential to detect ammonia in gas giants

Bowens, Rory; Leisenring, Jarron; Meyer, Michael; Montoya, Manny; Hoffman, William F.; Morzinski, Katie M.; Hinz, Philip; Bergin, Edwin A.; Viges, Eric; Calissendorff, Per; Forrest, W. J.; McMurtry, Craig W.; Pipher, J. L.; Cabrera, Mario S.

doi:10.1117/12.2628953

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The fifth iteration of the instrument, MIRAC-5's optical design, consists of an off-axis ellipsoid to reimage an intermediate focal plane (located near the instrument entrance window) onto the detector surface housed within a cryogenic environment (Bowens et al 2022). The entrance aperture wheel has five positions containing three slits ranging from 0.4 to 0.8 mm wide, a pinhole 0.5 mm in diameter, and a large square aperture.…”

Section: Mirac Testing At Azmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evaluating the GeoSnap 13‐μ$$ \mu $$m cutoff HgCdTe detector for mid‐IR ground‐based astronomy

et al. 2023

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New mid‐infrared HgCdTe (MCT) detector arrays developed in collaboration with Teledyne Imaging Sensors (TIS) have paved the way for improved 10‐m sensors for space‐ and ground‐based observatories. Building on the successful development of longwave HAWAII‐2RGs for space missions such as NEO Surveyor, we characterize the first 13‐m GeoSnap detector manufactured to overcome the challenges of high‐background rates inherent in ground‐based mid‐IR astronomy. This test device merges the longwave HgCdTe photosensitive material with Teledyne's GeoSnap‐18 (18‐m pixel) focal plane module, which is equipped with a capacitive transimpedance amplifier (CTIA) readout circuit paired with an onboard 14‐bit analog‐to‐digital converter (ADC). The final assembly yields a mid‐IR detector with high QE, fast readout (>85 Hz), large well depth (>1.2 million electrons), and linear readout. Longwave GeoSnap arrays would ideally be deployed on existing ground‐based telescopes as well as the next generation of extremely large telescopes. While employing advanced adaptive optics (AO) along with state‐of‐the‐art diffraction suppression techniques, instruments utilizing these detectors could attain background‐ and diffraction‐limited imaging at inner working angles <10 /D, providing improved contrast‐limited performance compared with JWST MIRI while operating at comparable wavelengths. We describe the performance characteristics of the 13‐m GeoSnap array operating between 38 45 K, including quantum efficiency, well depth, linearity, gain, dark current, and frequency‐dependent () noise profile.

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Section: Mirac Testing At Azmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here we describe efforts to characterize the GeoSnap array for use in ground-based mid-IR instruments. One such instrument is MIRAC-5, currently being refurbished for use on the MMT with the new MAPS AO system (Bowens et al 2022;Morzinski et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the GeoSnap 13‐μ$$ \mu $$m cutoff HgCdTe detector for mid‐IR ground‐based astronomy

et al. 2023

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“…The GeoSnap detector we used for characterization is destined for the MIRAC instrument 44 . Its high well depth allows for integration times of the order of 100 ms in NOMIC without saturating on the background.…”

Section: Technical Requirements and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imaging nearby, habitable-zone planets with the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer

Wagner¹,

Leisenring²,

Apai³

et al. 2022

Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging VIII

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One of the main design considerations of the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) was the goal to resolve the habitable zones (HZs) of the nearest stars at mid-infrared wavelengths around 10 µm. The LBT Interferometer (LBTI) makes use of the telescope's two 8.4 m mirrors on a common mount and their 22.7 m edge-to-edge separation for sensitive, high-angular resolution observations at thermal-infrared wavelengths. In addition to adaptive optics imaging using the two mirrors separately, the instrument enables nulling and Fizeau imaging interferometry exploiting the full resolving power of the LBT. The LBTI team has successfully completed the Hunt for Observable Signatures of Terrestrial planetary Systems (HOSTS), for which we used nulling-interferometry to search for exozodiacal dust, and we are continuing the characterization of the detected systems. Here, we describe a new program to exploit the LBTI's Fizeau imaging interferometric capabilities for a deep imaging search for low-mass, HZ planets around a small sample of particularly suitable, nearby stars. We also review the LBTI's current status relevant to the proposed project to demonstrate the instrument is ready for such a large project.

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MIRAC-5: a ground-based mid-IR instrument with the potential to detect ammonia in gas giants

Cited by 2 publications

References 9 publications

Evaluating the GeoSnap 13‐μ$$ \mu $$m cutoff HgCdTe detector for mid‐IR ground‐based astronomy

Evaluating the GeoSnap 13‐μ$$ \mu $$m cutoff HgCdTe detector for mid‐IR ground‐based astronomy

Imaging nearby, habitable-zone planets with the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer

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