A tiny glass chip developed by researchers at Heriot-Watt University has linked two telescopes together to enable them to act as a single powerful instrument.<\/p>\n
The CHARA Array in California is one of the world’s leading facilities for high-resolution astronomy and consists of six telescopes that can be linked together to study celestial objects in “extraordinary detail”.<\/p>\n
To make this possible, the light collected by each telescope must be combined with extreme precision. The photonic chip – which guided light through thin glass channels in the manner of integrated circuits guiding electrons – has been used for the first time in on-sky observations at the CHARA Array. The results show that the technology, small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, can perform a task that has traditionally required much larger and more complex optical systems.<\/p>\n
The achievement could help transform the way future astronomical instruments are designed, making them smaller, more robust and easier to upgrade, while still delivering the precision needed to study distant stars and planetary systems.<\/p>\n
Researchers believe the technology could eventually support some of astronomy’s most ambitious goals, including studying how planetary systems form and evolve while helping scientists directly detect and characterise planets around other stars.<\/p>\n
The international project brought together researchers from the Heriot-Watt University, Cologne and Potsdam Universities, and Georgia State University. The photonic chip at the heart of the instrument was developed at Heriot-Watt University’s Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences by Professor Robert Thomson and Dr Aur\u00e9lien Beno\u00eet.<\/p>\n
Thomson said: \u201cThis is a significant milestone for a research programme that began more than 15 years ago – astronomers can achieve much sharper views of the universe by combining observations from several telescopes at the same time – doing this allows the telescopes to work together as though they were one much larger telescope.<\/p>\n
\u201cTraditionally, combining the light from multiple telescopes requires bulky instruments with complex arrangements of mirrors and lenses; we have shown that much of that work can instead be carried out by a glass chip only a couple of centimetres in size.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Heriot-Watt photonic chip\u00a0chip sits at the heart of an instrument called CHARIOT, which was designed as a testbed for new photonic technologies. During observing campaigns in 2024 and 2025, CHARIOT successfully combined light from telescopes at the CHARA Array and recorded signals from a range of stars, demonstrating the precision required for advanced astronomical research. The instrument also detected signals from stars fainter than those reached by the system it replaced.<\/p>\n
Dr Aur\u00e9lien Beno\u00eet, from Heriot-Watt University\u2019s Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences, said: \u201cThere is something very special about seeing a device that we conceived, designed, fabricated and characterised in the laboratory being used to efficiently collect and analyse light from real stars at one of the world\u2019s leading astronomical interferometers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe great advantage of our approach is that we can integrate complex optical functions into a remarkably small and stable glass chip – combined with the flexibility of CHARIOT, this gives us a powerful platform for rapidly testing and validating increasingly advanced photonic technologies as we develop them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The achievement could help transform the way future astronomical instruments are designed, making them smaller, more robust and easier to upgrade<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":278857,"featured_media":8457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50204,120903],"coauthors":[137126],"class_list":["post-8456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","category-universities-and-business","tag-edinburgh-lothians","tag-featured-story"],"yoast_head":"\n