Cryogenic Optical Characteristics of S-FPL51 and S-LAH71: Refractive index, Transmission and Thermal expansion

Abstract

Several near-infrared instruments on upcoming extremely large telescopes use a combination of OHARA S-FPL51 and S-LAH71 glass prisms to correct for the atmospheric differential refraction. Because large parts of these instruments are contained within a vessel cooled to liquid nitrogen temperatures, the changes in optical and mechanical properties should be considered during the design phase. In this report, we provide an update to our continuing efforts to characterize the S-FPL51 and S-LAH71 glass under cryogenic conditions. These efforts include a measurement of the refractive index (293 K, 100 K and 80 K), transmission measurements (293 K, 77 K and 43 K) and a determination of the coefficient of thermal expansion (between 293 K and 45 K). We will describe the cryogenic test setups that we have used to obtain our results, and provide summarizing equations of these material properties. This characterization will prove useful for conceptual design trade-offs, mechanical interface solutions and detailed optical design for future near-infrared instrumentation on large telescopes.