New telescope chip offers clear view of alien planets

Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) are breaking new ground in photonics—the science of ‘electronics’ that uses light.

PhD student Harry-Dean Kenchington Goldsmith and supervisor, ARC-funded researcher Associate Professor Steve Madden, at the Australian National University node of CUDOS have developed a tiny microchip that could be used in telescopes to eliminate unwanted light from bright stars when searching for planets. This microchip makes use of photonics, a technology that is yielding increasingly important solutions to a variety of technological problems.

Media issued by the Australian National University.