First starlight spectrum captured using an integrated photonic micro-spectrograph

¹ MQ Photonics Research Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
e-mail: nick.cvetojevic@mq.edu.au
² Centre for Astronomy, Astrophysics and Astrophotonics, Macquarie University, Australia
³ Centre for Ultrahigh Bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), Australia
⁴ Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO), PO Box 296, Epping, NSW 2121, Australia
⁵ Sydney Institute for Astronomy (SIfA), School of Physics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
⁶ Institute of Photonics and Optical Science (IPOS), School of Physics, University of Sydney, Australia

Received: 26 February 2012
Accepted: 12 June 2012

Abstract

Photonic technologies have received growing consideration for incorporation into next-generation astronomical instrumentation, owing to their miniature footprint and inherent robustness. In this paper we present results from the first on-telescope demonstration of a miniature photonic spectrograph for astronomy, by obtaining spectra spanning the entire H-band from several stellar targets. The prototype was tested on the 3.9 m Anglo-Australian telescope. In particular, we present a spectrum of the variable star π 1 Gru, with observed CO molecular absorption bands, at a resolving power R = 2500 at 1600 nm. Furthermore, we successfully demonstrate the simultaneous acquisition of multiple spectra with a single spectrograph chip by using multiple fibre inputs.