DARKNESS

Overview

The Dark-speckle Near-IR Energy-resolved Superconducting Spectrophotometer (DARKNESS; PI: Ben Mazin, University of California Santa Barbara) is an integral field spectrograph (IFS) designed for high-contrast imaging of exoplanetary systems in combination with the PALM-3000 (P3K) extreme Adaptive Optics (XAO) system and the Stellar Double Coronagraph (SDC) at Palomar Observatory. DARKNESS is unique amongst high-contrast imagers because it is the first such instrument to use superconducting Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) as the focal plane array. At optical/near-IR wavelengths MKIDs detect individual photons with time resolution of a few microseconds, are capable of measuring individual photon energies to within a few percent, and have no analogue for the read-noise or dark current present in conventional semiconductor-based detectors. With the unique capabilities of MKIDs, DARKNESS can simultaneously serve as a focal plane wavefront sensor for real-time speckle suppression at high frame-rates and low-resolution IFS for science data.

Publications

DARKNESS: A Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector Integral Field Spectrograph for High-contrast Astronomy
S.R.Meeker, B.A Mazin, A.B. Walter,P. Strader, N. Fruitwala, C. Bockstiegel, P. Szypryt, G. Ulbricht, G, Coiffard, B. Bumble, G. Cancelo, T. Zmuda, K. Treptow, N. Wilcer, G. Collura, R. Dodkins, I. Lipartito, N. Zobrist, Nicholas; M. Bottom, J.C. Shelton, D. Mawet, J.C. van Eyken, G. Vasisht, E. Serabyn
PASP, Volume 130, p 065001 (2018)

Design and Development Status of MKID Integral Field Spectrographs for High Contrast Imaging
Meeker, Seth; Mazin, Benjamin; Jensen-Clem, Rebecca; Walter, Alex; Szypryt, Paul; Strader, Matthew; Bockstiegel, Clint
Proc. AO4ELT4, Volume 1, Issue 1 (2015)
Copyright 2015. https://doi.org/10.20353/K3T4CP1131701