ICON on cover of Applied Optics magazine
Applied Opics cover story
Magazine caption: View into the MIGHTI interferometer, designed to measure thermospheric winds and temperatures as part of the NASA ICON mission scheduled for launch September 2017. Gold-coated echelle gratings shown are framed by thermally compensating spacer posts.
The magazine Applied Optics featured an article about ICON's MIGHTI instrument in its March 10, 2017 issue, and chose a photograph from the article for its cover page. This is ICON's first print magazine cover. In a mostly-digital publishing age, it's an honor to be chosen for a prominent place in a highly regarded industry publication from The Optical Society.
Article abstract: Development of a new generation of low-groove density-blazed echelle gratings optimized for MIGHTI, a space-borne spatial heterodyne interferometer operating in the visible and near infrared is described. Special demands are placed on the wavefront accuracy, groove profile, and efficiency of these gratings. These demands required a new ruling for this application, with significant improvements over existing gratings.
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