IMaX: a polarimeter based on Liquid Crystal Variable Retarders for an aerospace mission

Abstract IMaX is the Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment, an instrument part of the payload of SUNRISE, a stratospheric balloon mission in Antarctica. It is also the precursor of the Visible Imaging Magnetograph of the future ESA Solar Orbiter mission. It is essentially a diffraction‐limited imager that...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:physica status solidi c
Main Authors: Uribe‐Patarroyo, N., Alvarez‐Herrero, A., Heredero, R. L., del Toro Iniesta, J. C., López Jiménez, A. C., Domingo, V., Gasent, J. L., Jochum, L., Martínez Pillet, V., The IMaX Team
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2008
Subjects:
Antarc*
Antarctica
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pssc.200777771
https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fpssc.200777771
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/pssc.200777771
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Summary:Abstract IMaX is the Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment, an instrument part of the payload of SUNRISE, a stratospheric balloon mission in Antarctica. It is also the precursor of the Visible Imaging Magnetograph of the future ESA Solar Orbiter mission. It is essentially a diffraction‐limited imager that carries out spectropolarimetric measurements of high resolution (bandwidth of < 100 mÅ at 525.02 nm), and relates the polarimetric properties of the incoming light through a telescope with magnetic fields in the Sun, via the Zeeman effect. At the core of the instrument there are the polarization modulation components, two Liquid Crystal Variable Retarders (LCVRs). A demodulation efficiency is defined and used as the figure of merit, and it serves to find the theoretical optimum states for the LCVRs as well as to judge the quality of the pre‐flight calibration of the system. This calibration and the method used to optimize the actual efficiency is explained. Also, the space qualification of the LCVRs is presented, where ellipsometry played a major role in studying the effects of radiation, vacuum and temperature in the operation of the LCVRs. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

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