The instrumentation to detect and analyze the light in the infrared range of the spectrum is one of the fields of knowledge of the Instrumentation Division. The design and construction of infrared cameras and spectrographs requires high vacuum and cryogenic technologies, involving the specialties of mechanical engineering, optics and electronics, mainly. The integration and operation of mechanisms and devices in a cryogenic environment is especially complex and requires highly specialized knowledge and equipment. The Instrumentation Division has a long history of international participation in this type of instrumentation.
FRIDA is an Integral Field Unit (IFU) based on an image dissector system using mirrors, and several optical cameras to cover different spatial scales sampling the GTC diffraction limit in the range 0.9 μm - 2.5 μm. Unlike all instruments installed or planned for GTC, FRIDA is the only one that will work with extreme spatial resolution, a factor 10
EMIR is a wide-field camera and intermediate resolution near infrared spectrograph. It is a criogenic multi-object spectrograph installed and in operation in the GTC telescope. A criogenic robotic reconfigurable slit system allows to obtain spectra from up to 50 objects simultaneously.
HARMONI is one of the three ELT (European Extremely Large Telescope) first light scientific instruments. It is a visible and near-infrared (0.47 to 2.45 µm) integral field spectrograph, providing the ELT's core spectroscopic capability, over a range of resolving powers from R (≡λ/Δλ) ~4000 to R~20000.
FRIDA (inFRared Imager and Dissector for Adaptive optics) is an integral field spectrograph in the near infrared, also with image mode, which will be installed in the GTC telescope. It will use the adaptive optics system of GTC (GTCAO) to observe with very high spatial resolution and spectral resolutions of up to 30,000.
NIRPS is a next-generation, near-infrared spectrograph that uses adaptive optics and is fed via a fiber link. It is a compact cryogenic Echelle spectrograph, capable of operating alone or in combination with the HARPS instrument. It will have a spectral resolution of 100000 or 75000, and will be installed in La Silla observatory (Chile).
MIRADAS is an intermediate resolution infrared spectrograph for the GTC telescope. It will operate in the infrared range of 1 to 2.5 microns with a spectral resolution of 20,000. It is a multi-object spectrograph capable of observing up to 20 objects simultaneously, by means of a robot with 20 arms that can patrol a 5 arcminutes field.
