{
  "id": "2509.02877",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2025-09-02T22:55:11.000Z",
  "updated": "2025-09-02T22:55:11.000Z",
  "title": "The Space Coronagraph Optical Bench (SCoOB): 7. design, fabrication, and first light for a self-coherent camera",
  "authors": [
    "Kevin Derby",
    "Kian Milani",
    "Grace C. Hathaway",
    "Joshua Liberman",
    "Kyle Van Gorkom",
    "Ramya Anche",
    "Adam Schilperoort",
    "Corey Fucetola",
    "Brandon Chalifoux",
    "Kuravi Hewawasam",
    "Christopher Mendillo",
    "Sebastiaan Y. Haffert",
    "Ewan S. Douglas"
  ],
  "comment": "8 pages, 7 figures, to be published in Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets XII",
  "categories": [
    "astro-ph.IM",
    "physics.optics"
  ],
  "abstract": "The 2020 Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics tasked future space observatories with the goal of detecting and characterizing a large sample of Earth-like exoplanets. To achieve this, these observatories will require coronagraphs and wavefront control algorithms in order to achieve $10^{-10}$ or better starlight suppression. The Space Coronagraph Optical Bench (SCoOB) is a vacuum compatible testbed at the University of Arizona which aims to advance and mature starlight suppression technologies in a space-like environment. In its current configuration, SCoOB is a charge-6 vector vortex coronagraph outfitted with a Kilo-C microelectromechanical systems deformable mirror capable of achieving sub-$10^{-8}$ dark hole contrast at visible wavelengths using implicit electric field conjugation (iEFC). In this work, we demonstrate the use of a self-coherent camera (SCC) for dark hole digging and maintenance on SCoOB. The SCC introduces a small off-axis pinhole in the Lyot plane which allows some starlight to reach the focal plane and interfere with residual speckles. This enables high-order focal-plane wavefront sensing which can be combined with active wavefront control to null the speckles in a specified region of high contrast known as the dark hole. We discuss considerations for implementation, potential limitations, and provide a performance comparison with iEFC. We also discuss the design optimization and fabrication process for our SCC Lyot stops.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2025-09-02T22:55:11.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "space coronagraph optical bench",
      "self-coherent camera",
      "first light",
      "dark hole",
      "microelectromechanical systems deformable mirror"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 8,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}