Demonstration of high-efficiency photonic lantern couplers for PolyOculus

The PolyOculus technology produces large-area-equivalent telescopes by using fiber optics to link modules of multiple semi-autonomous, small, inexpensive, commercial-off-the-shelf telescopes. Crucially, this scalable design has construction costs that are >10× lower than equivalent traditional large-area telescopes. We have developed a novel, to the best of our knowledge, photonic lantern approach for the PolyOculus fiber optic linkages that potentially offers substantial advantages over previously considered free-space optical linkages, including much higher coupling efficiencies. We have carried out the first laboratory tests of a photonic lantern prototype developed for PolyOculus, and demonstrated broadband efficiencies of ∼91%, confirming the outstanding performance of this technology.