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Issue A&A Volume 376, Number 3, September IV 2001 Page(s) L31 - L34 Section Letters DOI 10.1051/0004-6361:20011035

A&A 376, L31-L34 (2001)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20011035

Integrated optics for astronomical interferometry

IV. First measurements of stars

J. P. Berger^{1, 2}, P. Haguenauer^{2, 3}, P. Kern², K. Perraut², F. Malbet², I. Schanen⁴, M. Severi⁵, R. Millan-Gabet¹ and W. Traub<sup>1

1</sup>  Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
²  Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire de Grenoble, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France
³  CSO mesure, 70 Av. des Martyrs, 38000 Grenoble, France
⁴  Laboratoire d'Électromagnétisme Microondes et Optoélectronique, 38016 Grenoble Cedex 1, France
⁵  CEA-LETI Département de Microtechnologies, 17 rue des Martyrs, 38054 Grenoble Cedex 9, France

(Received 16 May 2001 / Accepted 18 July 2001 )

Abstract
We present in this paper the astronomical validation of a new approach to interferometric starlight combination. Using integrated optics technologies developed by the telecommunication industry, we have implemented optical circuits on coin-size chips that combine two beams and provide simultaneous photometric calibration signals. We report the first interferometric observations of stars using such beam combiners at the Infrared Optical Telescope Array (IOTA). This result opens the way to a new generation of miniaturized, high performance, and reliable instruments, dedicated to interferometric aperture synthesis.

Key words: interferometry -- integrated optics -- instrumentation

Offprint request: J. P. Berger, jberger@cfa.harvard.edu

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