Optical design for the 450, 350, and 200 µm ArTeMiS camera

Abstract

ArTeMiS is a submillimeter camera planned to work simultaneously at 450 µm, 350 µm and 200 µm by use of 3 focal planes of, respectively, 8, 8 and 4 bolometric arrays, each one made of 16 x18 pixels. In July 2013, with a preliminary setting reduced to 4 modules and to the 350 µm band, ArTeMiS was installed successfully at the Cassegrain focus of APEX, a 12 m antenna located on the Chajnantor plateau, Chile. After the summary of the scientific requirements, we describe the main lines of the ArTeMiS nominal optical design with its rationale and performances. This optical design is highly constrained by the room allocation available in the Cassegrain cabin. It is an all-reflective design including a retractable pick off mirror, a warm Fore Optics to image the focal plane of the telescope inside the cryostat, and the cold optics. The large size of the field of view at the focal plane of the telescope, 72 mm x 134 mm for the 350 µm & 450 µm beams, leads to the use of biconical toroidal mirrors. In this way, the nominal image quality obtained on the bolometric arrays is only just diffraction limited at some corners of the field of view. To keep a final PSF as much uniform as possible across the field of view, we have used the technic of manufacturing by diamond turning to machine the mirrors. This approach, while providing high accuracy on the shape of the mirrors, made easier the control of the two sub units, the Fore Optics and the cold optics, in the visible domain and at room temperature. Moreover, the use of the similar material (Aluminium alloy 6061) for the optical bench and the mirrors with their mount ensures a homothetic shrinking during the cooling down. The alignment protocol, drew up at the early step of the study, is also presented. It required the implementation of two additional mechanisms inside the cryostat to check the optical axis of the cold optics, in the real conditions of operation of ArTeMiS. In this way, it was possible to pre-align the Fore Optics sub unit with respect to the cold optics. Finally, despite the high constraints of the operating conditions of APEX, this protocol allowed to align ArTeMiS with respect to the telescope in a single adjustment. The first images obtained on the sky, Saturn with its rings, are given.