Polymer System for Aerospace Mirror Applications

Advanced Materials Technology, Inc responds to the DoD needs to develop novel polymer-based materials for aerospace mirror applications in missile defense systems. Compared to the current state-of-art mirror materials, polymeric materials will provide considerable weight and cost savings. In order to prevent significant figure error and "fiber print through", these materials should have low and tailorable coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), low coefficient of moisture expansion (CME), low cure shrinkage, low internal stresses, low outgassing, and high thermal and environmental stability. It is also required that surface figure be less than wavelength/20 and surface roughness be less than 2 nm. We propose to develop a multicomponent polymeric system that will meet the desired requirements. We shall develop polymer systems with "tunable" properties though optimizing polymer characteristics and processing parameters, thus satisfactorily fulfilling aerospace mirror requirements. The ultimate goal of the program is the development of zero CTE polymers. The morphology and physical properties of the polymer systems will be evaluated. Once the feasibility of the concept of low/near zero CTE polymers using the proposed technology is demonstrated in Phase I, we shall scale-up this concept in a Phase II program to meet DoD requirements.