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Spatiotemporal electron-beam shaping is a bold frontier of electron microscopy. Over the past decade, shaping methods evolved from static phase plates to low-speed electrostatic and magnetostatic displays. Recently, a swift change of paradigm utilizing light to control free electrons has emerged. Here, we experimentally demonstrate arbitrary transverse modulation of electron beams without complicated electron-optics elements or material nanostructures, but rather using shaped light beams. On-demand spatial modulation of electron wavepackets is obtained via inelastic interaction with transversely shaped ultrafast light fields controlled by an external spatial light modulator. We illustrate this method for the cases of Hermite-Gaussian and Laguerre-Gaussian modulation and discuss their use in enhancing microscope sensitivity. Our approach dramatically widens the range of patterns that can be imprinted on the electron profile and greatly facilitates tailored electron-beam shaping.

4MOST is a wide-field, high-multiplex spectroscopic survey facility under development for the VISTA telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Its main science drivers are in the fields of galactic archeology, high-energy physics, galaxy evolution and cosmology. 4MOST will in particular provide the spectroscopic complements to the large area surveys coming from space missions like Gaia, eROSITA, Euclid, and PLATO and from ground-based facilities like VISTA, VST, DES, LSST and SKA. The 4MOST baseline concept features a 2.5 degree diameter field-of-view with similar to 2400 fibres in the focal surface that are configured by a fibre positioner based on the tilting spine principle. The fibres feed two types of spectrographs; similar to 1600 fibres go to two spectrographs with resolution R> 5000 (lambda similar to 390-930 nm) and similar to 800 fibres to a spectrograph with R> 18,000 (lambda similar to 392-437 nm & 515-572 nm & 605-675 nm). Both types of spectrographs are fixed-configuration, three-channel spectrographs. 4MOST will have an unique operations concept in which 5 year public surveys from both the consortium and the ESO community will be combined and observed in parallel during each exposure, resulting in more than 25 million spectra of targets spread over a large fraction of the southern sky. The 4MOST Facility Simulator (4FS) was developed to demonstrate the feasibility of this observing concept. 4MOST has been accepted for implementation by ESO with operations expected to start by the end of 2020. This paper provides a top-level overview of the 4MOST facility, while other papers in these proceedings provide more detailed descriptions of the instrument concept[1], the instrument requirements development[2], the systems engineering implementation[3], the instrument model[4], the fibre positioner concepts[5], the fibre feed[6], and the spectrographs[7].

The Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE), an integral-field spectrograph for the ESO Very Large Telescope, has been built and integrated by a consortium of 7 European institutes. MUSE can simultaneously record spectra across a field of view of 1 square arcminute in the wavelength range from 465nm to 930nm. The calibration unit (CU) for MUSE was developed to provide accurate flat fielding, spectral, geometrical, image quality and efficiency calibration for both the wide-field and AO-assisted narrow-field modes. This paper describes the performance of the CU and electronics, from the subsystem validation to the integration, alignment and use in the MUSE instrument.

Optical fibre tapers show great promise as a simple and highly effective means of efficiently coupling broadband light into astronomical instruments. Fibre tapers can replace bulk optics systems such as focal plane reduction and magnification optics by controlling and manipulating image scale and beam angle in a small, robust and cost effective device. However, like any new photonic device fibre tapers must be thoroughly characterised before they can be applied to astronomy. The specific characteristics of importance are the device’s ability to maintain the etendue of the system and to transmit light over a broad wavelength range with minimal loss. In this paper we present the manufacturing technique and preliminary results for the first large taper transition prototype devices manufactured in-house intended for astronomy applications. Characteristics addressed include: beam angle, focal ratio degradation and throughput for devices with a conversion ratio of 5 (5 x focal reduction or magnification) for two taper transition lengths.

Photonic Lanterns are a fibre-based component performing the adiabatic conversion from a multimode fibre to a series of single-mode fibres. This conversion is required for combining fibre-based instruments used in astronomy with complex photonic functions. As any fibre-based system, the optical properties of the Photonic Lanterns need to be fully evaluated. In this paper, we present results on the performance of a 1-to-61 Photonic Lantern in terms of spectral transmission and modal noise characteristics. Firstly, we compare the spectra obtained at the output of two photonic lanterns spliced together in multimode-to-multimode configuration with spectra obtained when transmitting light through step-index single-mode and multimode fibres. We then show that the photonic lantern is generating less modal noise than a step-index multimode fibre of same core diameter, when it is submitted to bending and stretching, and we propose an interpretation of this result based on static mode scrambling performance and single-mode behavior.

Ground based near-infrared observations have long been plagued by poor sensitivity when compared to visible observations as a result of the bright narrow line emission from atmospheric OH molecules. The GNOSIS instrument recently commissioned at the Australian Astronomical Observatory uses Photonic Lanterns in combination with individually printed single mode fibre Bragg gratings to filter out the brightest OH-emission lines between 1.47 and 1.70μm. GNOSIS, reported in a separate paper in this conference, demonstrates excellent OH-suppression, providing very “clean” filtering of the lines. It represents a major step forward in the goal to improve the sensitivity of ground based near-infrared observation to that possible at visible wavelengths, however, the filter units are relatively bulky and costly to produce. The 2nd generation fibre OH-Suppression filters based on multicore fibres are currently under development. The development aims to produce high quality, cost effective, compact and robust OH-Suppression units in a single optical fibre with numerous isolated single mode cores that replicate the function and performance of the current generation of “conventional” photonic lantern based devices. In this paper we present the early results from the multicore fibre development and multicore fibre Bragg grating imprinting process.

The power losses introduced by bending multimode optical fibres have been studied since the last forty years, when the efficient transmission of those fibres was regarded as very useful for devices that require the transmission of spatially incoherent light (white light), e.g. Integral Field Units (IFU) for Astrophysics. In the literature, the influence of the fibre coating on transmission properties is rarely taken in account, i.e. the fibres under test are frequently stripped, however, in practical applications the fibres are used with their coating. We present the results of an experimental study of attenuation due to bending stress on several large-core multimode coated optical fibres. In this experiment the attenuation is studied as a function of applied stress in kilo pounds squared inches [kpsi]. The fibres under test are similar to the type of optical fibre used in astronomy for fibre based spectroscopic applications, or used as probes for chemical sensing applications. We investigate a range of different core diameters for both all-silica and hard cladding step-index fibres. Optical-fibres manufacturers are offering a variety of coating materials and, the tested fibres are coated with the following: silicone, polyimide, two types of fluorine doped acrylate, and acrylate. We show that for a given coating material, applying the same bending stress on fibers introduces the same amount of attenuation, regardless of the fibre bending radius or fibre core diameter. We also show differences in attenuation due to the use of different coating material.

The 4MOST consortium is currently halfway through a Conceptual Design study for ESO with the aim to develop a wide-field (>3 square degree, goal >5 square degree), high-multiplex (>1500 fibres, goal 3000 fibres) spectroscopic survey facility for an ESO 4m-class telescope (VISTA). 4MOST will run permanently on the telescope to perform a 5 year public survey yielding more than 20 million spectra at resolution R~5000 (��=390-1000 nm) and more than 2 million spectra at R~20,000 (395-456.5 nm & 587-673 nm). The 4MOST design is especially intended to complement three key all-sky, space-based observatories of prime European interest: Gaia, eROSITA and Euclid. Initial design and performance estimates for the wide-field corrector concepts are presented. We consider two fibre positioner concepts, a well-known Phi-Theta system and a new R-Theta concept with a large patrol area. The spectrographs are fixed configuration two-arm spectrographs, with dedicated spectrographs for the high- and low-resolution. A full facility simulator is being developed to guide trade-off decisions regarding the optimal field-of-view, number of fibres needed, and the relative fraction of high-to-low resolution fibres. Mock catalogues with template spectra from seven Design Reference Surveys are simulated to verify the science requirements of 4MOST. The 4MOST consortium aims to deliver the full 4MOST facility by the end of 2018 and start delivering high-level data products for both consortium and ESO community targets a year later with yearly increments., To appear in the proceedings of the SPIE Astronomical Instrumentation + Telescopes conference, Amsterdam, 2012. 15 pages, 16 figures

MUSE (Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer) is a second generation VLT panoramic integral field spectrograph developed for the European Southern Observatory (ESO), operating in the visible and Near Infrared wavelength range (0.465-0.93 μm) with a 1 arcmin square FoV sampled at 0.2arcsec. It is composed of a Calibration unit, a Fore-optics and a Splitting and relay system that feeds 24 identical Integral Field Units (IFU); each one incorporates an advanced image slicer associated with a classical spectrograph. This article will present the optical design choices that have been done to optimize the costs, size and performances of the instrument as well as a detailed ghost images analysis of the whole instrument.

The Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) is an integral-field spectrograph for the ESO Very Large Telescope. After completion of the Final Design Review in 2009, MUSE is now in its manufacture and assembly phase. To achieve a relative large field-of-view with fine spatial sampling, MUSE features 24 identical spectrograph-detector units. The acceptance tests of the detector sub-systems, the design and manufacture of the calibration unit and the development of the Data Reduction Software for MUSE are under the responsibility of the AIP. The optical design of the spectrograph implies strict tolerances on the alignment of the detector systems to minimize aberrations. As part of the acceptance testing, all 24 detector systems, developed by ESO, are mounted to a MUSE reference spectrograph, which is illuminated by a set of precision pinholes. Thus the best focus is determined and the image quality of the spectrograph-detector subsystem across wavelength and field angle is measured.

ERASMUS-F is a pathfinder study for a possible E-ELT 3D-instrumentation, funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). The study investigates the feasibility to combine a broadband optical spectrograph with a new generation of multi-object deployable fibre bundles. The baseline approach is to modify the spectrograph of the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE), which is a VLT integral-field instrument using slicers, with a fibre-fed input. Taking advantage of recent developments in astrophotonics, it is planed to equip such an instrument with fused fibre bundles (hexabundles) that offer larger filling factors than dense-packed classical fibres. The overall project involves an optical and mechanical design study, the specifications of a software package for 3Dspectrophotometry, based upon the experiences with the P3d Data Reduction Software and an investigation of the science case for such an instrument. As a proof-of-concept, the study also involves a pathfinder instrument for the VLT, called the FIREBALL project.

Auto-stereoscopic 3D displays capable of high quality, full-resolution images for multiple users can only be created with time-sequential systems incorporating eye tracking and a dedicated optical design. The availability of high speed displays with 120Hz and faster eliminated one of the major hurdles for commercial solutions. Results of alternative display solutions from SeeReal show the impact of optical design on system performance and product features. Depending on the manufacturer's capabilities, system complexity can be shifted from optics to SLM with an impact on viewing angle, number of users and energy efficiency, but also on manufacturing processes. A proprietary solution for eye tracking from SeeReal demonstrates that the required key features can be achieved and implemented in commercial systems in a reasonably short time.

Dependence on sub-micron pixel pitch and super-computing have prohibited practical solutions for large size holographic displays until recently. SeeReal Technologies has developed a new approach to holographic displays significantly reducing these requirements. This concept is applicable to large "direct view" holographic displays as well as to projection designs. Principles, advantages and selected solutions for holographic projection systems will be explained. Based on results from practical prototypes, advantageous new features, as large size full-color real-time holographic 3D scenes generated at high frame rates on micro displays with state of the art resolution will be presented.