Variations on a theme: novel immersed grating based spectrometer designs for space

We present novel immersed grating (IG) based spectrometer designs that can be used in space instrumentation. They are based on the design approach that aims to optimize the optical design using the expanded parameter space that the IG technology offers. In principle the wavefront error (WFE) of any optical system the most conveniently can be corrected in the pupil, where in the case of the IG based spectrometer, the IG itself is positioned. By modifying existing three-mirror based optical systems, which can form the main part of double pass spectrometer designs, a large portion of the WFE of the optical system can be transferred to the pupil and to the IG. In these cases the IG can compensate simple low order aberrations of the system and consequently the main benefit is that the mirrors that tend to be off-axis conical sections can be substituted by spherical mirrors. The WFE budget of such designs has only a minor contribution from the very high quality spherical mirrors and the majority of the WFE can be then allocated to the most complex part of the system, the IG. The latter can be designed so that the errors are compensated by a special grating pattern that in turn can be manufactured using the expertise and experience of the semiconductor industry.