PICS4SENS

At the heart of PICS4^SENS lies an ambitious idea : creating a complete spectrograph-on-chip, covering visible to near-infrared wavelengths. Traditional spectrographs used for astronomy are large, heavy for space applications, utilize expensive bulk optics and detectors, and scale with the size of a telescope’s primary mirror. By miniaturizing these systems onto a tiny photonic component, the project seeks to deliver compact instruments decoupled from the telescope primary mirror’s diameter, with a high efficiency-to-size ratio.

AIP contributes its expertise in astrophotonic spectrographs for astronomy and IHP complements this with its capability to integrate photonics and electronics on a single-substrate. This dual-expertise will allow PICS4^SENS to overcome limitations, such as bulky opto-mechanics, cooling and large detector arrays.

The innoFSPEC Transfer Laboratory at the University of Potsdam will exploit the innovations made in PICS4^SENS beyond astronomy. The project’s technology has potential applications in real-world everyday industrial domains such as telecommunications, sensing, healthcare, and manufacturing- key innovation priorities for the Berlin-Brandenburg region.

Project links:

Astrophotonics : https://www.aip.de/de/research/astrophotonics/

innoFSPEC transfer lab: https://innofspec.de/en/transfer-lab

Leibniz-Institut für innovative Mikroelektronik (IHP) https://www.ihp-microelectronics.com/about-us/cleanroom