Astrophotonics Research at the University of Sydney

Research is a very important part of the University of Sydney. The physics department and its many research groups are at the forefront of research in Australia and the world. The astrophotonics research group, part of the Consortium for Australian Astrophotonics with the Anglo Australian Observatory, is a pioneer in the field, collaborating with groups within Australia and worldwide.

Fibre Bragg gratings and OH-suppression

The introduction of fibre Bragg gratings to optical fibres are able to eliminate the narrow OH background lines in the infrared J and H bands. This allows astronomers to greatly increase the sensitivity of their measurements when operating in the near infrared. The transmission profile of these fibres can be designed to suppress OH lines with an effective resolution of at least R = 10,000.

Photonic lantern

The photonic lantern has been developed as a solution to the problem of working with single and multimode fibres in conjunction. This is a technology with many potential applications, not only in astrophysics and astronomy.

Hexabundle fibres

Hexabundles are a type of hexagonal fibre arrangement where the fibres are either squeezed together so that there are no gaps in between (fused hexabundle) or are held together by a low stress glue (unfused hexabundle). These will replace components in modern multi-fibre systems.

Integrated photonic spectrograph

One approach to the problem of rising cost and complexity in telescopes as their size increases is to feed the fibres into individual spectrographs rather than one huge (and expensive) spectrograph.