Design and modeling of an oblique incidence dichroic mirror for a high contrast imaging system

Abstract

The proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) aims to detect and characterize Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars from the ultraviolet to the infrared using high-contrast imaging. A dichroic mirror is a natural choice for splitting light between multiple wavelength channels in such a system, but the coating must introduce minimal polarization aberrations and chromatic wavefront errors (WFE) to avoid limiting contrast. We present the design of a long-pass dichroic mirror operated at a $7^\circ$ angle of incidence that provides high reflection in the short-wavelength band, high transmission in the long-wavelength band, and a sharp cut-on near 550~nm. A multilayer thin-film design process was used to meet these spectral requirements while reducing polarization aberrations and chromatic WFE sensitivity. Reflected phase optimization was also incorporated to reduce sensitivity to manufacturing-induced layer-thickness variations, which can produce wavelength-dependent WFE and degrade coronagraph performance. The resulting coating-induced WFE was propagated through simulations of a vector vortex coronagraph to assess contrast performance. Simulations predict dark-hole contrast residuals at the $10^{-12}$ level, indicating that the optimized dichroic mirror does not limit coronagraph performance.