Searching for very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs with DENIS

We present the results of infrared spectroscopic observations of a sample of very low-mass stars and brown dwarf candidates detected in a 230 square degree area by the DENIS (DEep Near Infrared Southern sky; Epchtein, 1997) survey. We find that objects as faint as the faintest known stars are easily detected by DENIS. This sample also includes three members of the new "L" dwarf class, one of which was the first confirmed isolated field brown dwarf. As this data represents similar to 1% of the total DENIS survey area, the completed survey can be expected to have a dramatic impact on the study of the faintest stars and brown dwarfs. In particular, it should detect similar to 300 of the new and poorly understood "L" class of dwarfs.