Holographic spectrograph for space telescope

A spectrograph is described which is made with dual Holographic Optical Elements (HOEs) which are identical and parallel to each other. Both optics are collimating transmission HOEs with focal points that are at equal and opposite distances from each other. The identical HOEs are formed by the interference of a plane wave parallel to the grating plane with an off-axis spherical wave originating in the near-field. In playback, a spectrum can be formed from a point source radiator placed at the position of the recording spherical wave. If played back at an arbitrary wavelength other than the recording wavelength, the image exhibits coma. This spectrograph is intended for an unusual configuration where many nearly monochromatic sources of known wavelengths are separately positioned relative to the first HOE. The special application is in a space telescope capable of resolving spectra from habitable planets within 10 pc. HOEs of this type could be fabricated on membrane substrates with a low areal mass and stowable on rolls for insertion into the second Lagrange point. The intended application is for a 50 x 10 meter class primary objective holographic space telescope with 50 x 10 m HOEs in the spectrograph. We present a computer model of the spectrograph.. Experimental results are compared with predictions from theory. A single HOE is shown to perform over a wider bandwidth and is demonstrated.