FIRST-PL: Commissioning the first visible photonic lantern spectrograph for sub-diffraction-limit astronomy on Subaru/SCExAO

2026/08/05 by Sebastien Vievard, Elsa Huby, Sylvestre Lacour +18
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph.IM

paper · pdf · doi:10.1117/12.3104134

Proceeding of SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2026 (Paper No. 14148-93)

arxiv created 2026/08/05 · arxiv updated 2026/08/06

Abstract

FIRST-PL (Fibered Imager foR a Single Telescope - Photonic Lantern) is a newly commissioned visible-light instrument on Subaru/SCExAO achieving spectroscopy below the diffraction limit. The instrument uses a Photonic Lantern (PL)-converting multimode fiber into 19 single-mode outputs-feeding a mid-resolution spectrograph (R 3000, 630-790 nm). On-sky performance demonstrates 40% injection efficiency at 680 nm (Strehl 30%) and 12x throughput improvement over single-mode fibers. Three operational modes enable spectro-astrometry (50 microarcseconds precision demonstrated on beta-CMi), image reconstruction, and high-contrast imaging. FIRST-PL represents a significant advancement in high-throughput photonic instrumentation.

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