Meeting the Optical Requirements of Large Focal-Plane Arrays

Abstract

Technological advances will allow the placement of many Terahertz detectors at the focal plane of a single telescope. For a telescope of a given diameter and wavelength of operation, there is a limit to the number of usable detectors imposed by diffraction and optical aberrations. These effects can be ameliorated through an optical design where the magnification of the telescope's secondary mirror is small and the detector package is therefore located near the secondary mirror. A field mirror can be used to flatten the image, and the focal reducer which matches the detector to the telescope can also provide an image of the aperture for placement of filters and stops. A design concept is presented for the South Pole Telescope which comprises a 10-meter diameter off-axis paraboloidal primary mirror, a Gregorian secondary mirror, a tertiary chopper, dewar widow, Lyot stops, band-pass filter, and space behind the focal plane for cryogenics. The telescope is bilaterally symmetric, and all apertures are unblocked. The field of view is one degree in diameter, so this telescope can feed an array of several tens of thousands of detectors at Terahertz frequencies.