DESIGN OF PHASE INDUCED AMPLITUDE APODIZATION CORONAGRAPHS OVER SQUARE APERTURES

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a theoretical study pertaining to the feasibility of Phase Induced Amplitude Apodization (PIAA) units using deformable mirrors (DMs). We begin by reviewing the general derivation of the design equations driving PIAA. We then show how to solve these equations for square apertures and show the performance of pure PIAA systems in the ray optics regime. We tie these design equations into the study of edge diffraction effects and provide a general expression for the field after a full propagation through a PIAA coronagraph. Third, we illustrate how a combination of pre- and post-apodizers yields a contrast of 10–10 even in the presence of diffractive effects, for configuration with neither wavefront errors or wavefront control. Finally, we present novel PIAA configurations over square apertures which circumvent the constraints on the manufacturing of PIAA optics by inducing the apodization with two square DMs. Such solutions rely on pupil size smaller than currently envisioned static PIAA solutions and thus require aggressive pre- and post-apodizing screens in order to mitigate for diffractive effect between the two mirrors. As a result they are associated with significant loss in performance, throughput in particular.