The MKID Exoplanet Camera for Subaru SCExAO

Abstract

We present the MKID Exoplanet Camera (MEC), a z through J band (800-1400 nm) integral field spectrograph located behind The Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) at the Subaru Telescope on Maunakea that utilizes Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) as the enabling technology for high contrast imaging. MEC is the first permanently deployed near-infrared MKID instrument and is designed to operate both as an IFU, and as a focal plane wavefront sensor in a multi-kHz feedback loop with SCExAO. The read noise free, fast time domain information attainable by MKIDs allows for the direct probing of fast speckle fluctuations that currently limit the performance of most high contrast imaging systems on the ground and will help MEC achieve its ultimate goal of reaching contrasts of 10 −7 at 2 λ/D. Here we outline the instrument details of MEC including the hardware, firmware, and data reduction and analysis pipeline. We then discuss MEC's current on-sky performance and end with future upgrades and plans.

SCExAO/MEC and CHARIS Discovery of a Low-mass, 6 au Separation Companion to HIP 109427 Using Stochastic Speckle Discrimination and High-contrast Spectroscopy*

“…In three epochs between 2020 July and December, we observed HIP 109427 with the Subaru Telescope using SCExAO coupled to CHARIS and MEC and with the Keck II telescope using the NIRC2 camera. (Jovanovic et al 2015b;Groff et al 2016;Currie et al 2020b;Walter et al 2020; Table 1). Conditions were photometric each night with average to excellent optical seeing (θ V = 0 35-0 7).…”

“…MEC data was reduced using the MKID Data Reduction and Analysis Pipeline (Walter et al 2020). 20 This pipeline notably includes a wavelength calibration, a flat-field correction, and a spectrophotometric calibration, among other steps.…”

“…Here we demonstrate the use of a postprocessing technique called Stochastic Speckle Discrimination (SSD; Fitzgerald & Graham 2006;Gladysz & Christou 2008;Meeker et al 2018) for detecting new low-mass companions using SCExAO and the Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector (MKID) Exoplanet Camera (MEC; Walter et al 2020). SSD works by utilizing the timing resolution of MKID detectors to break up an observation into a series of short exposures in postprocessing.…”

Validating advanced wavefront control techniques on the SCExAO testbed/instrument

“…33 • GLINT, a near-IR photonic nuller. 31,34 • MEC 35 , the MKID exoplanet camera, a wavelength-resolving noise-free photon counting imaging camera. MEC typically operates in parallel with CHARIS taking shorter wavelength light.…”

Understanding and minimizing resonance frequency deviations on a 4-in. kilo-pixel kinetic inductance detector array

“…Lumped element kinetic inductance detectors (LEKIDs) have been widely developed for astronomical observations [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] in the last decade.…”