Nanophotonic materials for space applications
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oduction The convergence of technology advances and public and private interests is opening access to space to an unprecedented degree. Launch costs, among the primary constraints on space missions, have been substantially reduced through reusable rockets, vertical integration of production, and market competition.1 The concept of what a spacecraft could look like is rapidly evolving, with the proliferation of miniature satellites—including CubeSats assembled from 10 cm × 10 cm × 10 cm cube units (Figure 1c)—that are cheaper to manufacture, launch, and deploy in large numbers.2–5 Built with the same off-the-shelf hardware that goes into our cell phones, these small space objects leverage the technological leaps in nano- and microprocessing, integrated circuitry, and economies of scale across nanoelectronics industries. However, the nanotechnology revolution that made these concepts possible has not been limited just to our ability to control the flow of electrons on the smallest of scales. It has led to materials breakthroughs for lighter, more resilient, and multifunctional components and materials systems with tailored properties especially suitable for the space environment.6–8 It has also enabled us to shape how light interacts with matter across the electromagnetic spectrum and has paved the way for radically different optical concepts and devices (Figure 1a–b). This article discusses several ways in which advances in
understanding light–matter interactions at the nanoscale could impact some of the existing space technologies, as well as lead to new, potentially transformative applications. Nanophotonic materials and metamaterials can exhibit highly unusual optical responses not found in natural materials. Properties such as negative refraction, anomalous dispersion, and the existence of photonic bandgaps arise from subwavelength features and could be exploited in a number of applications, including for beam steering, reconfigurable optics, cloaking, imaging, photonic signal processing, and many others.9 Depending on the application, photonic designs at the nanoscale have evolved to encompass a wide variety of motifs, from multilayer stacks and two- (2D) and threedimensional (3D) photonic crystals, to the more recent planar aperiodic meta-atoms and metasurfaces.10,11 In conjunction with these developments, advances in materials synthesis and fabrication in the last decade—including single- and few-atomic-layer materials12—have enabled unprecedented control of material arrangements and stacking down to the nanometer level. This has opened rich opportunities for combining material properties with structural patterns, and emerging sophisticated photonic design methods can navigate the vast landscape of possible combinations.13 Importantly, such rich functionality can be realized in ultrathin and lightweight structures, enabling mimicking of bulk optical elements in a
Ognjen Ilic, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota, USA; [email protected] doi:10.1557/mrs.2020.223
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