  Oncoming exoplanet spectro-imagers like the Planetary Camera and Spectrograph
(PCS) for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will aim for a new class of
exoplanets, including Earth-like planets evolving around M dwarfs i.e., closer
than 0.1'' with contrasts around 10^-8. This can be achieved with coronagraphs
to modulate the wavefront. Classical coronagraphs are not optimal: 1) they
impose a planetary photon loss, which is particularly problematic when the
instrument includes a high spectral-resolution spectrograph, 2) some
aberrations such as the missing segments of the ELT are dynamic and not
compatible with a static coronagraph design, 3) the coupling of the exoplanet
image with a fiber for spectroscopy only requires the electric field to be
controlled on a small region of the detector. Such instruments would benefit
from an adaptive tool to modulate the wavefront in both amplitude and phase. We
propose to combine in the pupil plane a deformable mirror (DM) to control the
phase and a digital micro-mirror device (DMD) i.e., an array made of 1920*1080
micro-mirrors able to switch between two positions, to control its amplitude.
If the DM is already well-known in the field in particular for adaptive optics
applications, the DMD has so far not been fully considered. At IPAG, we are
currently assembling a testbed called CIDRE (Coronagraphy for DiRect Imaging of
Exoplanets) to develop, test, calibrate, and validate the combination of these
two components with a Lyot coronagraph. Since March 2022, CIDRE is assembled
albeit without the Lyot coronagraph yet. The first few months have been
dedicated to the calibration of the DMD. Since May 2022, it is operational and
used to test dynamic amplitude apodization coronagraphs (so-called Shaped
Pupils). This proceeding presents the set up of the CIDRE testbench and the
first experimental results on adaptive Shaped Pupils obtained with the DMD.
