Astronomical Instrumentation for Ground- and Space- Based Telescopes

Astronomers are building telescopes so large that the atmosphere’s turbulence would blur their images beyond use unless a new generation of adaptive optics can correct for it in real time. The problem is that current adaptive optics systems—which use deformable mirrors to cancel out atmospheric distortion—cannot handle the speed or precision required by the next generation of extremely large telescopes. Without better wavefront sensors, faster control electronics, and more accurate mirror components, these telescopes will never deliver the sharp images they were designed for. This project tackles that bottleneck by developing high-fidelity computer simulations of adaptive optics systems, testing very high order wavefront correctors in the lab, and building a next-generation real-time control system in partnership with ESO. The team will also manufacture high-precision micro-optics components in-house and explore photonic crystal devices that could give spectrographs fundamentally new capabilities. If successful, the research will enable ground-based telescopes to see as clearly as space telescopes, but at a fraction of the cost. That could transform how astronomers study exoplanet atmospheres, black hole environments, and the early universe. The work is primarily fundamental science—it does not have a direct everyday application—but the micro-optics and photonic crystal advances could eventually feed into fibre-optic communications or laser systems.