Kavli Affiliate: Harry A. Atwater
| First 5 Authors: Matthew F. Campbell, Matthew F. Campbell, , ,
| Summary:
Achieving laser-driven, reflective, relativistic light sails would represent
a tremendous breakthrough for humankind, allowing us to advance our
understanding of the solar system and deep space far beyond what we know from
space probes, telescopes, and objects passing near Earth. Numerous sail film
designs have been proposed, but none have been demonstrated that satisfy all of
the stringent optical, mechanical, and mass budget constraints. Here we
overcome this challenge by experimentally demonstrating a novel class of
optically-optimized nanolaminate sails with strong and flexible
hexagonally-corrugated microstructures. Our prototypes, fabricated from alumina
and molybdenum disulfide using scalable semiconductor processing techniques,
feature ultra-low areal densities of <1 g/m^2 and achieve
experimentally-measured reflectivities of >50% and absorptivities of <4% within
the Doppler-shifted laser wavelength range corresponding to accelerating to a
fifth the speed of light. Moreover, we analyze reflectivity, strength, and mass
constraints to show that our sails have the potential to achieve greater
maximum velocities than other sail designs in the literature. Broadly, our
films mark a significant leap forward toward plausible relativistic
interstellar propulsion for intragalactic exploration
| Search Query: ArXiv Query: search_query=au:”Harry A. Atwater”&id_list=&start=0&max_results=3