Photonic Wavefront Imager (PWI) uses unique Australian-led photonic technology to achieve exquisitely high angular resolution and high-contrast imaging for exoplanet, stellar and active galactic nuclei science.
This project will first build PWI for the Magellan for the MagAO-X extreme adaptive optics system. This will be both a uniquely sensitive science instrument and wavefront sensor, as well as the pathfinder for a subsequent version for the GMT. The GMT PWI will also have the benefit of improving image quality (via mirror-phasing and wavefront sensing) for other GMT instruments.
A version is also being developed forth SCExAO system at the Subaru telescope, and the core technology is currently being integrated into the Asgard suite at ESO’s VLTI. Several PWI instrument instances will therefore come from this project.