METIS: the thermal infrared instrument for the E-ELT

The ‘Mid-infrared ELT Imager and Spectrograph’ (METIS) will be the third instrument on the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). METIS will provide diffraction limited imaging in the atmospheric L/M and N-band from 3 to 14 μm over an 18˝×18˝ field of view, as well as high contrast coronagraphy, medium-resolution (R ≤ 5000) long slit spectroscopy, and polarimetry. In addition, an integral field spectrograph will provide a spectral resolution of R ~ 100,000 at L/M band. Focusing on highest angular resolution and high spectral resolution, METIS will deliver unique science, in particular in the areas of exo-planets, proto-planetary-disks and high-redshift galaxies, which are illustrated in this paper. The reduction of the E-ELT aperture size had little impact on the METIS science case. With the recent positive developments in the area of detectors, the METIS instrument concept has reached a high level of technology readiness. For some key components (cryogenic chopping mirror, immersed grating, sorption cooler and cryogenic derotator) a development and test program has been launched successfully.