As a Scientist at SRON I work on developing optical technology to directly image and characterize potentially habitable exoplanets to answer the fundamental question: “are we alone?”.
Coronagraphs
Exoplanets are outshined by their host stars by one in a million or even one in ten billion, while they orbit close to their star. I develop advanced optics based on liquid crystals called “coronagraphs” to filter starlight to characterize the surfaces and atmospheres of faint exoplanets. I collaborate closely with NOVA and ColorLink Japan, ltd.
SUPPPPRESS project
I have developed a novel “multi-grating” method where we combine multiple liquid-crystal optics to overcome their fundamental manufacturing limit. I successfully demonstrated this multi-grating method with a prototype in collaboration with the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Now, together with NOVA, Paris Observatory, and cosine we have received ESA funding for our SUPPPPRESS project to further improve these multi-grating coronagraphs for future space telescopes.
VENI grant
I have received an NWO VENI grant to work on the system implementation of liquid-crystal coronagraphs. The goal is to enable the characterization of circumstellar disks, the birthplaces of exoplanets. To this end, I will develop methods for measuring and correcting optical aberrations and methods for polarization measurements. I will implement and validate these optics at the Subaru Telescope, and on the PICTURE-D stratospheric balloon experiment.
TOLIMAN mission
I am a co-investigator of the TOLIMAN mission, led by The University of Sydney, which aims to find exoplanets around our close-neighbor binary stars, Alpha Cen A and B. In collaboration with NOVA, I used liquid-crystal technology to make the TOLIMAN front plate, which modifies the light of these stars from a point to a dartboard-like structure to measure if an exoplanet distorts their motion extremely accurately.
