Wide-Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST) Slitless Spectrometer: Design, Prototype, and Results

The slitless spectrometer plays an important role in the WFIRST mission for the survey of emission-line galaxies. This will be an unprecedented very wide field, HST quality 3D survey of emission line galaxies1. The concept of the compound grism as a slitless spectrometer has been presented previously. The presentation briefly discusses the challenges and solutions of the optical design, and recent specification updates, as well as a brief comparison between the prototype and the latest design. However, the emphasis of this paper is the progress of the grism prototype: the fabrication and test of the complicated diffractive optical elements and powered prism, as well as grism assembly alignment and testing. Especially how to use different tools and methods, such as IR phase shift and wavelength shift interferometry, to complete the element and assembly tests. The paper also presents very encouraging results from recent element tests to assembly tests. Finally we briefly touch the path forward plan to test the spectral characteristic, such as spectral resolution and response.