The Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics instrument: imaging planets and enabling photonic instrumentation

The Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) instrument is an adaptive test bed for prototyping cutting edge high contrast imaging technologies for ELTs. It is currently nearing the completion of commissioning and beginning regular science operations. The instrument exploits the latest that technology has to offer. It operates with an advanced high order wavefront control loop that is based on a deep depletion EMCCD and a 2000 element deformable mirror. Suppression of the stellar glare is facilitated by a choice of advanced coronagraphs. A dark region in the focal plane can be realised by way of a speckle nulling algorithm allowing the detection of even fainter planetary mass companions. Visible light science is provided by the VAMPIRES imager. This instrument offers a spatial resolution approaching 10 mas, as well as precision polarimetry which have been harnessed recently to detect a dust shell around a post-AGB star with a radius of only 9 mas!

Finally, with a stable high Strehl PSF, SCExAO is the ideal platform for injecting light into photonic technologies for enhanced spectroscopy. In this talk we will outline the status of SCExAO, show some initial commissioning results and the successful photonic injection experiments and preliminary spectroscopy conducted thus far.