RELATIVE DYNAMICS INC — National Aeronautics and Space Administration SBIR Phase I: S12

Description

NASA needsnbsp;system technology solutions that enable or enhance telescopes for missions of any size (from balloon or CubeSat to Probe or Flagship) operating at any wavelength from UV/optical to mid/far-infrared. Relative Dynamics Inc. proposes thenbsp;Metalens Near InfraRed Telescope (MeNIRT) solution.nbsp;RDI will design and analyze the overall telescope system.nbsp; The telescope system is the optics (lens and metalens) and anbsp;carbon fiber/metal hybrid opto-mechanicalnbsp;structure.nbsp;Metalenses are flat lenses that use metasurfaces to focus light. The metasurfaces are a series of artificial antennae that manipulate the optical response of the incident light, including its amplitude phase and polarization. Metasurfaces have provided a new approach to recasting optical components into flat devices withoutnbsp;performance deterioration.nbsp;Carbon fiber composites have high stiffness, high tensile strength, low weight, high chemical resistance, high temperature tolerance and low thermal expansion. RDI will investigate two methods for engineering the CTEnbsp;1) adjusting the chemical composition of the carbon fiber and the resin 2) adjusting the direction of the carbon fiber laying.nbsp;MeNIRT provides a lightweight telescope that greatly eases mass limitations with a path to optical to mid-IR diffraction-limited performance over the wide temperature range. nbsp;Using flat optics and athermalized continuous carbon fiber telescope structure greatly reduces coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) limitations and gravity sag.Using flat on-axis optics, MeNIRT does not have a telescope central obscuration. The Metalens is manufactured for mass production using standard silicon lithography.nbsp; The new commercial design tools for silicon flat optics in combination with the continuous carbon fiber structure provide a straight-forward method for design, manufacture, and test.MeNIRT provides a path to flat optics and athermal telescopes for science missions with wavelengths from the ultraviolet to the far-infrared.nbsp;