A new approach to Highly Multiplexed Spectroscopy

The instrumentation developments within this thesis are primarily aimed at instrumentation for the next generation of telescopes: Extremely large telescopes (ELTs). In the European astronomical community, the highest priority for ground-based optical and near-IR instrumentation has been identified as high-multiplex, multi-object spectroscopy (HMS) [1]. HMS includes both simultaneous observations of multiple faint objects at the limits of detection (Multiple Object Spectroscopy: MOS) and spatially-resolved spectroscopy over contiguous fields of brighter structured objects (Integral Field Spectroscopy: IFS) and a mixture of the two (Diverse Field Spectroscopy: DFS). However, before we can start to build instrumentation for ELTs it is important to: understand fibre characteristics more thoroughly and be able to predict behaviour with the use of a theoretical model (chapter 3); look at new technologies (Photonic Crystal Fibres, chapter 4, Volume Phase Holographic Gratings, chapter 5); use fibres in different ways (MAIFU, chapter 6).