Laboratory demonstration and numerical simulations of the phase-induced amplitude apodization

Phase-induced amplitude apodization (PIAA) uses two aspheric optics to produce an achromatic apodization of an incoming beam by changing the geometrical distribution of the light in the pupil plane. Since this apodization is lossless, the sensitivity and angular resolution of the telescope are preserved, theoretically allowing efficient detection of Earth-size planets from space with a 2 m diameter optical telescope. In this paper, we report the first laboratory demonstration of imaging with a PIAA system. First, we show that the optics shapes computed by our algorithm produce an apodized collimated beam only by changing the geometrical distribution of the light and without losing light. We then present images of on- and off-axis point-spread functions and compare them with our numerical simulations.