GLINT, a pathfinder instrument for exoplanets characterization through nulling interferometry

High angular resolution (of order milliarcseconds) at high contrast (fractional flux of order 10-6 or fainter) is required to directly detect exoplanets light, revealing their intrinsic atmosphere and surface properties. Here we present the GLINT (Guided Light Interferometric Nulling Technologies) instrument, a pathfinder developed at the University of Sydney in Australia to tackle this task. It employs nulling interferometry to actively reject the light of a host star through destructive interference. Such advanced control and processing of starlight is accomplished by way of photonic technologies fabricated into integrated optical chips. This platform immediately offers versatile and complex optical layouts all miniaturized onto highly stable and low-loss components. The first GLINT prototype was demonstrated on sky at the 4m Anglo Australian Telescope. Our current testbed on the 8m Subaru telescope boasts significantly expanded capabilities including multiple input array elements feeding a spectrally-dispersed interferometer delivering multi-channel nulling and complex visibility data.