| Abstract: | Modal noise is a common source of noise introduced to the measurements by optical fibres and is particularly important for fibre‐fed spectroscopic instruments, especially for high‐resolution measurements. This noise source can limit the signal‐to‐noise ratio and jeopardize photon‐noise limited data. The subject of the present work is to compare measurements of modal noise and focal‐ratio degradation (FRD) for several commonly used fibres. We study the influence of a simple mechanical scrambling method (excenter) on both FRD and modal noise. Measurements are performed with circular and octagonal fibres from Polymicro Technology (FBP‐Series) with diameters of 100, 200, and 300μm and for square and rectangular fibres from CeramOptec, among others. FRD measurements for the same sample of fibres are performed as a function of wavelength. Furthermore, we replaced the circular fibre of the STELLA‐échelle‐spectrograph (SES) in Tenerife with an octagonal and found a SNR increase by a factor of 1.6 at 678 nm. It is shown in the laboratory that an excenter with a large amplitude and low frequency will not influence the FRD but will reduce modal noise rather effectively by up to 180%. (© 2016 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) |
