Radiation and electrostatic resistance for ultra-stable polymer composites reinforced with carbon fibers.

Future space travel needs ultra-lightweight and robust structural materials that can withstand extreme conditions with multiple entry points to orbit to ensure mission reliability. This is unattainable with current inorganic materials. Ultra-highly stable carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs) have shown susceptibility to environmental instabilities and electrostatic discharge, thereby limiting the full lightweight potential of CFRP.

Multifunctional Nanostructures with Controllable Band Gap Giving Highly Stable Infrared Emissivity for Smart Thermal Management.

Thermal control is essential to guarantee the optimal performance of most advanced electronic devices or systems. In space, orbital satellites face the issues of high thermal gradients, heating, and different thermal loads mediated by differential illumination from the Sun. Todaýs state-of-the-art thermal control systems provide protection; however, they are bulky and restrict the mass and power budgets for payloads.

Increasing the robustness and crack resistivity of high-performance carbon fiber composites for space applications.

The endeavors to develop manufacturing methods that can enhance polymer and composite structures in spacecraft have led to much research and innovation over many decades. However, the thermal stability, intrinsic material stress, and anisotropic substrate properties pose significant challenges and inhibit the use of previously proposed solutions under extreme space environment. Here, we overcome these issues by developing a custom-designed, plasma-enhanced cross-linked poly(p-xylylene):diamond-like carbon superlattice material that enables enhanced mechanical coupling with the soft polymeric and composite materials, which in turn can be applied to large 3D engineering structures.

Complete Atomic Oxygen and UV Protection for Polymer and Composite Materials in a Low Earth Orbit.

With the realization of larger and more complex space installations, an increase in the surface area exposed to atomic oxygen (AO) and ultraviolet (UV) effects is expected, making structural integrity of space structures essential for future development. In a low Earth orbit (LEO), the effects of AO and UV degradation can have devastating consequences for polymer and composite structures in satellites and space installations. Composite materials such as carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) or polymer materials such as polyetherimide and polystyrene are widely used in satellite construction for various applications including structural components, thermal insulation, and importantly radio frequency (RF) assemblies.

Ultra-broadband light trapping using nanotextured decoupled graphene multilayers.

The ability to engineer a thin two-dimensional surface for light trapping across an ultra-broad spectral range is central for an increasing number of applications including energy, optoelectronics, and spectroscopy. Although broadband light trapping has been obtained in tall structures of carbon nanotubes with millimeter-tall dimensions, obtaining such broadband light-trapping behavior from nanometer-scale absorbers remains elusive. We report a method for trapping the optical field coincident with few-layer decoupled graphene using field localization within a disordered distribution of subwavelength-sized nanotexturing metal particles.

Optical nanostructures in 2D for wide-diameter and broadband beam collimation.

Eliminating curved refracting lensing components used in conventional projection, imaging and sensing optical assemblies, is critical to enable compactness and miniaturisation of optical devices. A suitable means is replacing refracting lenses with two-dimensional optical media in flat-slab form, to achieve an equivalent optical result. One approach, which has been the focus of intense research, uses a Veselago lens which features a negative-index metamaterial.

Efficient coupling of optical energy for rapid catalyzed nanomaterial growth: high-quality carbon nanotube synthesis at low substrate temperatures.

The synthesis of high-quality nanomaterials depends on the efficiency of the catalyst and the growth temperature. To produce high-quality material, high-growth temperatures (often up to 1000 °C) are regularly required and this can limit possible applications, especially where temperature sensitive substrates or tight thermal budgets are present. In this study, we show that high-quality catalyzed nanomaterial growth at low substrate temperatures is possible by efficient coupling of energy directly into the catalyst particles by an optical method.