Development of a slicer integral field unit for the existing optical spectrograph FOCAS: Progress

We are developing an integral field unit (IFU) with an image slicer for the existing optical spectrograph, Faint Object Camera And Spectrograph (FOCAS), on the Subaru Telescope. The slice width is 0.43 arcsec, the slice number is 23, and the field of view is 13.5 × 9.89 arcsec². Sky spectrum separated by about 5.7 arcmin from an object field can be simultaneously obtained, which allows us precise background subtraction. Slice mirrors, pupil mirrors and slit mirrors are all glass, and their mirror surfaces are fabricated by polishing. Our IFU is about 200 mm × 300 mm × 80 mm in size and 1 kg in weight. It is installed into a mask storage in FOCAS along with one or two mask plates, and inserted into the optical path by using the existing mask exchange mechanism. This concept allow us flexible operation such as Targets of Opportunity observations. High reflectivity of multilayer dielectric coatings offers high throughput (>80%) of the IFU. In this paper, we will report a final optical layout, its performances, and results of prototyping works.