Broadband, High-Reflectivity Dielectric Mirrors at Wafer Scale: Combining Photonic Crystal and Metasurface Architectures for Advanced Lightsails
arXiv:2312.04471 · doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c01374
Abstract
Highly ambitious initiatives aspire to propel a miniature spacecraft to a neighboring star within a human generation, leveraging the radiation pressure of lasers for propulsion. One of the main challenges to achieving this enormous feat is to build a meter-scale, ultra-low mass lightsail with broadband reflectivity. In this work, we present the design and fabrication of such a lightsail composed of two distinct dielectric layers and patterned with a photonic crystal structure covering a 4" wafer. We overcome the crucial challenge of achieving broad band reflection of >70% spanning over the full Doppler-shifted laser wavelength range during spacecraft acceleration, in combination with low total mass in the range of a few grams when scaled to meter size. Furthermore, we find new paths to reliably fabricate these sub-wavelength structures over macroscopic areas and then systematically characterize their optical performance, confirming their suitability for future lightsail applications. Our innovative device design and precise nanofabrication approaches represent a significant leap toward interstellar exploration.
References in corpus (10)
- "Light Sail" Acceleration Revisited
- Detecting Infrared Single Photons with Near-Unity System Detection Efficiency
- Integrated optomechanical arrays of two high reflectivity SiN membranes
- Stability of a Light Sail Riding on a Laser Beam
- Relativistic Spacecraft Propelled by Directed Energy
- Image formation process with the solar gravitational lens
- Integrated optical force sensors using focusing photonic crystal arrays
- Resolved imaging of exoplanets with the solar gravitational lens
- Active-feedback quantum control of an integrated low-frequency mechanical resonator
- Direct Multipixel Imaging and Spectroscopy of an Exoplanet with a Solar Gravity Lens Mission