Rapid Fabrication of Mirrors

MDA and the Air Force are interested in low cost, rapidly fabricated, stiff, lightweight mirror technologies for meter-class optics. Schafer and teammate SRS Technologies propose to directly produce large diameter replicated mirrors using liquid phase processing to generate a 0 CTE glass foam support structure to support a polymer membrane (CP1T-DE) close-out (mirror surface) material. Schafer Low Expansion Glass (LEG) FoamT is a porous glass material that has been composited with a negative coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) material, to produce a low density, near 0 CTE (low expansion) glass-ceramic material with the consistency of a drinking glass. The open-celled porous LEG FoamT substrate surface is closed-out using several microns of CP1T-DE high-thickness uniformity polymer membrane material. A low cost, lightweight (1-2 kg/m2 areal density), stiff replicated mirror could be manufactured in several days to weeks.