Abstract
Photonic lanterns are emerging as a powerful instrument technology for optical and near-infrared modal imaging and wavefront sensing for astronomy applications. Previous implementations of photonic lanterns as wavefront sensors have relied on either low-order (linear, quadratic, etc.) approximations to their responses, or machine learning approaches to attempt to recover the required wavefront information, with corresponding limitations in their performance. Photonic lanterns can provide more general and accurate wavefront sensing performance, as well as sub-diffraction-limited image resolution, when we know the full complex “decoding” transfer matrix between the lantern multimode input end and the single-mode output fiber ports. I will present our group’s recent work on measuring the wavelength-dependent decoding transfer matrices of photonic lanterns, the properties of these matrices, and the resulting phase retrieval performance of the photonic quantum-inspired imaging (PQI2) systems. I will also review recent laboratory and ground-based on-sky test results and potential future applications of PQI2 systems, including as ground-/space-based wavefront sensors, super-resolution imagers, and hybrid focal plane wavefront/science sensors for the Habitable Worlds Observatory.