| Presentation Title: | EUV Image Slicers for Solar Physics |
| Author(s): | Sarah Matthews, Ariadna Calcines and Hamish Reid |
Abstract:
Image slicer technology has been used as an Integral Field Unit (IFU) for ground-based telescopes in night-time astronomy for several years, but only relatively recently proposed for solar physics, first for the European Solar Telescope, and later GRIS on GREGOR and DL-NIRSP on DKIST. Image slicers have several advantages which make them an excellent choice for space Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS): they are compact, lightweight, robust to in-flight effects and highly efficient. They facilitate coupling between telescope and instrument with minimum light losses and offer the possibility to produce a magnification without additional components, enabling optimal imaging performance. With no polarisation effects and no focal-ratio degradation, image slicers are the best IFU alternative for solar IFS.
Despite their obvious technical and scientific advantages – they offer 2-D imaging spectroscopy without the need to raster, making them ideal for flare observations – the technology has not so far been applied to the EUV. In this presentation we discuss the results of a pilot study addressing some of the critical points for EUV applications, including the narrowest width achievable in powered slicer mirrors in different substrates, and the minimum surface roughness that can be achieved in glass. We outline next steps for development and potential applications for future solar physics space missions.