Universite de Sherbrooke

Published purpose

The path of light in free space propagation is severely disturbed by atmospheric turbulence. Adaptive optics has demonstrated that it can effectively mitigate this problem for ground-based astronomy. Quantum key distribution for ground-to-satellite optical communication could also benefit from active atmospheric turbulence correction to improve channel fidelity. The performance of current adaptive optics systems remains limited, with correction residuals preventing from achieving very high-profile science cases, such as imaging exoplanets. One of the main limitations comes from the wavefront sensors, i.e. the devices used to sense the incoming fast-evolving stochastic aberrations. The Project aims to implement a new generation of wavefront sensors taking advantage of a single photon avalanche diode array integrated with advanced readout and signal processing electronics, also known as photon-to-digital converters.