Supercontinuum light sources for use in astronomical instrumentation: a test with PMAS, the Potsdam multi-aperture spectrophotometer

Supercontinuum white light sources (SCLS) are intense, spatially coherent laser sources with a very broad and flat spectral energy distribution which have very quickly found ubiquitous use in optical laboratories. As photonics is now providing more and more applications for astronomical instrumentation, the possible use of SCLS as a calibration light source for spectroscopy has been tested. A standard industrial SCLS was coupled to the calibration unit of the PMAS integral field spectrophotometer and compared directly to the PMAS standard tungsten filament lamp that is normally used for calibration exposures. We report on comparative measurements concerning flux, spectral energy distribution, and temporal stability.

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