The Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is one of the four science instruments installed into the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) on JWST intended to conduct scientific observations over a five-year mission lifetime. NIRCam's requirements include operation at 37 kelvins to produce high resolution images in two wave bands encompassing the range from 0.6 microns to 5 microns. In addition NIRCam is used as a metrology instrument during the JWST observatory commissioning on orbit, during the initial and subsequent precision alignments of the observatory's multiple-segment 6.3 meter primary mirror. JWST is scheduled for launch and deployment in 2012. This paper is an overview of the NIRCam instrument's Optical Calibration Sources (Flat Field and Point Source). It will discuss the source requirements and will explain the optical and electronic technology developed to fulfill their mission requirements.
Femtosecond and picosecond pulses can find many applications if they can be produced with laser sources that are not only powerful and efficient but also compact and reliable. In continuous wave operation, diode pumping of solid-state lasers has allowed for a rapid progress towards powerful, compact and reliable sources, while the often used technique of Kerr lens modelocking for pulsed operation tends to be in conflict with requirements for diode-pumpable high power designs. Passive modelocking with semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors solves this problem as it relaxes the restrictions on the cavity design. We report on our recent achievements in this field. In particular we present a novel semiconductor device for dispersion compensation and various improved diode-pumped passively modelocked lasers. Also we show which laser parameters determine the stability of a passively modelocked lasers against Q-switching instabilities.
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