Silencing the stellar glare with kernel-nulling and active phase control on photonic chips

@misc{martinod2026silencing,
  title = {{Silencing the stellar glare with kernel-nulling and active phase control on photonic chips}},
  author = {Marc-Antoine Martinod and Vincent Foriel and Nick Cvetojevic and Frantz Martinache and Jeronimo Calderon-Gomez and Roxanne Ligi and David Mary},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.24540},
  eprint = {2609.24540},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.24540},
  note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Silencing the stellar glare with kernel-nulling and active phase control on photonic chips
AU  - Marc-Antoine Martinod
AU  - Vincent Foriel
AU  - Nick Cvetojevic
AU  - Frantz Martinache
AU  - Jeronimo Calderon-Gomez
AU  - Roxanne Ligi
AU  - David Mary
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/25
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.24540
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.24540
AB  - Characterizing exoplanets and finding biosignatures are among the hottest topics in astronomy. This quest is challenged by the brightness contrast between the faint planet and the overwhelming glare of the host star, their small angular separation, and observing conditions degraded by optical aberrations. Nulling interferometry is a promising technique to achieve this goal by fulfilling requirements for both high contrast and high angular resolution. Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) provide compactness, design versatility, and scalability needed for nulling. With the PHOTONICS project, we aim to create novel coherent combination architectures, based on a multimode interferometer (MMI) coupler and on-chip active phase control with no moving parts. We present the first lab tests of a four-beam kernel-nuller made out of a single MMI coupler with active phase control: ABCD fringe-tracking and the characterization of the contrast detection limits of a four-beam kernel-nuller.
ER  -