Freezing the speckles: focal plane wavefront sensing with the spatially clipped self-coherent camera

Abstract

The next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) and the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) require active speckle suppression to directly image exo-Earths. Focal plane wavefront sensing and control allows us to detect and remove time-varying speckles through measurements of the electric field, ideally with a single- shot measurement scheme. Wavefront sensing approaches include pairwise probing (PWP) and the self-coherent camera (SCC). However, the PWP technique is time-consuming, requiring at least 4 images and reducing the speed at which aberrations can be eliminated. The classical SCC modifies a standard coronagraph design, creating a reference electric field that interferes with speckles in the final focal plane, forming Fizeau fringes. However, this design only works over small spectral bandwidths and requires significantly oversized optics, limiting its effectiveness. We demonstrate a new SCC variant, the Spatially-Clipped Self-Coherent Camera (SCSCC). The SCSCC utilizes a pinhole placed close to the Lyot stop, reducing the overall beam footprint and boosting the sensor’s spectral bandwidth by factors of 3, respectively. A beamsplitter and knife edge downstream of the Lyot stop splits the light into 2 channels: fringed and unfringed, enabling wavefront sensing with a single exposure. Time-varying speckles are frozen in place, making them easy to remove. We present the SCSCC optical design combined with the photon resolving Hamamatsu Orca-Quest 2 camera. Furthermore, we demonstrate high speed wavefront control with the SCSCC, minimizing speckle intensity by 2x within a 5-11 λ/D dark hole region on the Comprehensive Adaptive Optics and Coronagraph Test Instrument (CACTI) at the University of Arizona. These lab tests are in preparation for the on-sky demonstration of the SCSCC with the Magellan Adaptive Optics eXtreme (MagAO-X) instrument in the Fall 2026 semester. Our results make the SCSCC a valuable wavefront sensor for upcoming missions, including the Giant Magellan Telescope and HWO.