Related papers: Advanced protection against environmental degradat…
Silver is a metal which provides the highest reflectivity in the very broad wavelength range as well as the lowest polarization splitting. However, it is not very stable chemically and silver mirrors are easily damaged in a corrosive or…
Although silver-based telescope mirrors excel over other materials such as gold and aluminum in the visible-infrared spectral range, they require robust protective coatings to overcome their inherent low durability. Our research shows that…
Mirrors are a subset of optical components essential for the success of current and future space missions. Most of the telescopes for space programs ranging from Earth Observation to Astrophysics and covering all the electromagnetic…
Silver (Ag) mirrors for astronomical telescopes consist of multiple metallic and dielectric thin films. Furthermore, the topmost surface of such Ag mirrors needs to be covered by a protection coating. While the protection coating is often…
Recent advances in the physical vapor deposition (PVD) of protective fluoride films have raised the far-ultraviolet (FUV: 912-1600 {\AA}) reflectivity of aluminum-based mirrors closer to the theoretical limit. The greatest gains, at more…
Efficient anti-reflection coatings (ARC) improve the light collection and thereby increase the current output of solar cells. By simple electrochemical etching of the Si wafer, porous silicon (PS) layers with excellent broadband…
We study the vacuum-induced degradation of high-finesse optical cavities with mirror coatings composed of SiO$_2$-Ta$_{2}$O$_{5}$ dielectric stacks, and present methods to protect these coatings and to recover their initial quality factor.…
For the new hadron collider LHC and some of its updates in luminosity and energy, as SLHC and VLHC, the silicon detectors could represent an important option, especially for the tracking system and calorimetry. The main goal of this paper…
We present the results of mechanical characterizations of many different high-quality optical coatings made of ion-beam-sputtered titania-doped tantala and silica, developed originally for interferometric gravitational-wave detectors. Our…
Silicon wafer and multilayer-coated mirror samples were exposed to impact of drops of molten tin to examine the adhesion behavior and cleaning possibilities. The sticking of tin droplets to horizontal substrates was examined for different…
In the construction of a space radio telescope, it is essential to use materials with a low noise factor and high mechanical robustness for the antenna surface. We present the results of measurements of the reflection performance of two…
The high chemical reactivity of strontium, which can opacify a viewport exposed to a strontium atomic source, is a concern for some atomic physics experiments where it is sometimes necessary to send a laser beam counter-propagating relative…
The mirrors installed on Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes like the MAGIC telescopes in La Palma, Canary Islands, are constantly exposed to the harsh environment. They have to withstand wind-induced corrosion from dust and sand,…
Single-sided aluminized polyimide films (SAPF) are widely used in thermal management of aerospace systems. Although the reliability of SAPF in space environments has been thoroughly studied, its reliability in ground environments during…
Upgrades to ground-based gravitational-wave observatories will require mirror coatings with reduced thermal noise, enabling improved detector sensitivity and extended astrophysical reach. Recent studies have shown that optical coatings…
Spacecraft neutralisers are required as part of the ion propulsion system for accurate station keeping in fundamental physics missions. This paper describes the use of thin layers of insulating materials as coatings for the gated silicon…
We report on the mechanical loss in fused silica samples with various surface treatments and compare them with samples having an optical coating. Mild surface treatments such as washing in detergent or acetone were not found to affect the…
A laser ablation system has been constructed and used to determine the damage threshold of stainless steel, rhodium and single-, poly- and nanocrystalline molybdenum in vacuum, at a number of wavelengths between 220 and 1064 nm using 5 ns…
The last decade has increasingly seen the use of silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) instead of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). This is due to various advantages of the former on the latter like its smaller size, lower operating voltage, higher…
We report on the microscopic surface structure of carbon-fiber-reinforced silicon carbide (C/SiC) composite mirrors that have been improved for the Space Infrared Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA) and other cooled telescopes.…