• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.150.2-150.2
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• 2011

Volume Phase Holographic (VPH) gratings are getting more popular as dispersion elements in spectrographs. High efficiency, compact configuration, and easy handling are driving many visual spectrographs to use VPH gratings for their main dispersers or for their cross-dispersers in higher resolution spectrographs. More recently, VPH gratings are being adopted in near-infrared by some spectrographs and by a number of next generation instrument projects. IGRINS (Immersion Grating Infrared Spectrograph) uses a VPH grating as a cross-disperser in each H or K band arm. J or H band performance of VPH gratings has been proven by other instruments. But K-band VPH gratings are new to the field. In this presentation, we are going to present test results we have got so far for verification of H-band VPH gratings and development of K-band VPH gratings.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.90-90
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• 2014

The Immersion Grating Infrared Spectrometer (IGRINS) is the first astronomical spectrograph that uses a silicon immersion grating as its dispersive element. IGRINS fully covers the H and K band atmospheric transmission windows in a single exposure. It is a compact high-resolution cross-dispersion spectrometer whose resolving power R is 40,000. An individual volume phase holographic grating serves as a secondary dispersing element for each of the H and K spectrograph arms. On the 2.7m Harlan J. Smith telescope at the McDonald Observatory, the slit size is $1^{{\prime}{\prime}}{\times}15^{{\prime}{\prime}}$. IGRINS has a plate scale of 0.27" pixel-1 on a $2048{\times}2048$ pixel Teledyne Scientific & Imaging HAWAII-2RG detector with a SIDECAR ASIC cryogenic controller. The instrument includes four subsystems; a calibration unit, an input relay optics module, a slit-viewing camera, and nearly identical H and K spectrograph modules. The use of a silicon immersion grating and a compact white pupil design allows the spectrograph collimated beam size to be 25mm, which permits the entire cryogenic system to be contained in a moderately sized ($0.96m{\times}0.6m{\times}0.38m$) rectangular Dewar. The fabrication and assembly of the optical and mechanical components were completed in 2013. From January to July of this year, we completed the system optical alignment and carried out commissioning observations on three runs to improve the efficiency of the instrument software and hardware. We describe the major design characteristics of the instrument including the system requirements and the technical strategy to meet them. We also present the instrumental performance test results derived from the commissioning runs at the McDonald Observatory.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.53.2-53.2
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• 2014

IGRINS, the Immersion GRating INfrared Spectrometer, is a near-infrared wide-band high-resolution spectrograph jointly developed by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute and the University of Texas at Austin. IGRINS employs three HAWAII-2RG focal plane array (FPA) detectors. The mechanical mounts for these detectors serves a critical function in the overall instrument design: Optically, they permit the only positional compensation in the otherwise "build to print" design. Thermally, they permit setting and control of the detector operating temperature independently of the cryostat bench. We present the design and fabrication of the mechanical mount as a single module. The detector mount includes the array housing, a housing for the SIDECAR ASIC, a field flattener lens holder, and a support base. The detector and ASIC housing will be kept at 65 K and the support base at 130 K. G10 supports thermally isolate the detector and ASIC housing from the support base. The field flattening lens holder attaches directly to the FPA array housing and holds the lens with a six-point kinematic mount. Fine adjustment features permit changes in axial position and in yaw and pitch angles. We optimized the structural stability and thermal characteristics of the mount design using computer-aided 3D modeling and finite element analysis. Based on the computer simulation, the designed detector mount meets the optical and thermal requirements very well.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.233-244
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• 2012

The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute and the Department of Astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin are developing a near infrared wide-band high resolution spectrograph, immersion grating infrared spectrometer (IGRINS). The compact white-pupil design of the instrument optics uses seven cryogenic mirrors, including three aspherical off-axis collimators and four flat fold mirrors. In this study, we introduce the optomechanical mount designs of three off-axis collimating mirrors and one flat slit-viewer fold mirror. Two of the off-axis collimators are serving as H and K-band pupil transfer mirrors, and are designed as system alignment compensators in combination with the H2RG focal plane array detectors in each channel. For this reason, the mount designs include tip-tilt and parallel translation adjustment mechanisms to properly perform the precision alignment function. This means that the off-axis mirrors' optomechanical mount designs are among the most sensitive tasks in all IGRINS system hardware. The other flat fold mirror is designed within its very limitedly allowed work space. This slit-viewer fold mirror is mounted with its own version of the six-point kinematic optics mount. The design work consists of a computer-aided 3D modeling and finite element analysis (FEA) technique to optimize the structural stability and the thermal behavior of the mount models. From the structural and thermal FEA studies, we conclude that the four IGRINS mirror mounts are well designed to meet all optical stability tolerances and system thermal requirements.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.86.1-86.1
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• 2011

We are developing a new universal spectropolarimeter on the Domeless Solar Telescope (DST) at the Hida Observatory to realize precise spectropolarimetric observations in a wide range of wavelength in visible and near infrared. The system aims to open a new window of plasma diagnostics by using Zeeman effect, Hanle effect, Stark effect, impact polarization, and atomic polarization for measuring the external magnetic field, electric field, or an anisotropy in the excitation of the atoms. The polarimeter is a successor of formerly developed polarimeter on DST, which make possible to observe a polarization in a photospheric spectral line with polarimetric accuracy of 10-2 (Kiyohara et al. 2004). The new system consists of a 60cm aperture vacuum telescope, a high dispersion vacuum spectrograph, polarization modulator / analyzer composed of a rotating waveplate whose retardation is constant for a wide range of wavelength and Wallaston prism, and a fast and large format CCD camera or IR camera. Spectral images in both orthogonal polarizations are taken simultaneously with a frame rate of ~20Hz while the waveplate rotates continuously in a rate of 1rev./sec. Thus It takes 5 ~ 60 sec to observe polarization with accuracy of 10-3 in a wide wavelength range (400 - 1100nm). We also examined a polarimetric model of the telescope with accuracy of 10-3 to calibrate instrumental polarization on some wavelengths. In this talk, I will focus on the performance of the instrument.