2023 Astrophotonics Roadmap: pathways to realizing multi-functional integrated astrophotonic instruments
Creators: name: Jovanovic, Nemanja
name: Gatkine, Pradip
name: Anugu, Narsireddy
name: Amezcua-Correa, Rodrigo
name: Thakur, Ritoban Basu
name: Beichman, Charles
name: Bender, Chad
name: Berger, Jean-Philippe
name: Bigioli, Azzurra
name: Bland-Hawthorn, Joss
name: Bourdarot, Guillaume
name: Bradford, Charles M.
name: Broeke, Ronald
name: Bryant, Julia
name: Bundy, Kevin
name: Cheriton, Ross
name: Cvetojevic, Nick
name: Diab, Momen
name: Diddams, Scott A.
name: Dinkelaker, Aline N.
name: Duis, Jeroen
name: Eikenberry, Stephen
name: Ellis, Simon
name: Endo, Akira
name: Figer, Donald F.
name: Fitzgerald, Michael
name: Gris-Sanchez, Itandehui
name: Gross, Simon
name: Grossard, Ludovic
name: Guyon, Olivier
name: Haffert, Sebastiaan Y.
name: Halverson, Samuel
name: Harris, Robert J.
name: He, Jinping
name: Herr, Tobias
name: Hottinger, Philipp
name: Huby, Elsa
name: Ireland, Michael
name: Jenson-Clem, Rebecca
name: Jewell, Jeffrey
name: Jocou, Laurent
name: Kraus, Stefan
name: Labadie, Lucas
name: Lacour, Sylvestre
name: Laugier, Romain
name: Ławniczuk, Katarzyna
name: Lin, Jonathan
name: Leifer, Stephanie
name: Leon-Sava, Sergio
name: Martin, Guillermo
name: Martinache, Frantz
name: Martinod, Marc-Antoine
name: Mazin, Benjamin A.
name: Minardi, Stefano
name: Monnier, John D.
name: Moreira, Reinan
name: Mourard, Denis
name: Nayak, Abani Shankar
name: Norris, Barnaby
name: Obrzud, Ewelina
name: Perraut, Karine
name: Reynaud, François
name: Sallum, Steph
name: Schiminovich, David
name: Schwab, Christian
name: Serbayn, Eugene
name: Soliman, Sherif
name: Stoll, Andreas
name: Tang, Liang
name: Tuthill, Peter
name: Vahala, Kerry
name: Vasisht, Gautam
name: Veilleux, Sylvain
name: Walter, Alexander B.
name: Wollack, Edward J.
name: Xin, Yinzi
name: Yang, Zongyin
name: Yerolatsitis, Stephanos
name: Zhang, Yang
name: Zou, Chang-Ling
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Photonics offer numerous functionalities that can be used to realize astrophotonic instruments. The most spectacular example to date is the ESO Gravity instrument at the Very Large Telescope in Chile. Integrated astrophotonic devices stand to offer critical advantages for instrument development, including extreme miniaturization, as well as integration, superior thermal and mechanical stabilization owing to the small footprint, and high replicability offering cost savings. Numerous astrophotonic technologies have been developed to address shortcomings of conventional instruments to date, including for example the development of photonic lanterns, complex aperiodic fiber Bragg gratings, complex beam combiners to enable long baseline interferometry, and laser frequency combs for high precision spectral calibration of spectrometers. Despite these successes, the facility implementation of photonic solutions in astronomical instrumentation is currently limited because of (1) low throughputs from coupling to fibers, coupling fibers to chips, propagation and bend losses, device losses, etc, (2) difficulties with scaling to large channel count devices needed for large bandwidths and high resolutions, and (3) efficient integration of photonics with detectors, to name a few. In this roadmap, we identify 24 areas that need further development. We outline the challenges and advances needed across those areas covering design tools, simulation capabilities, fabrication processes, the need for entirely new components, integration and hybridization and the characterization of devices. To realize these advances the astrophotonics community will have to work cooperatively with industrial partners who have more advanced manufacturing capabilities. With the advances described herein, multi-functional instruments will be realized leading to novel observing capabilities for both ground and space platforms.
description: 191 pages, 47 figures. This is the version of the article before peer review or editing, as submitted by an author to J. Phys. Photonics. IOP Publishing Ltd is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. The Version of Record is available online at https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7647/ace869/meta