All 2015 Content
Session
Technical Session IV: Advanced Technologies I
Abstract
In this paper we report on the design, fabrication and characterization of a bio-inspired moth-eye antireection (AR) surface designed to operate in the space environment. Nano and micro-satellites do not generally employ active solar arrays, opting instead for pas- sive, body mounted solar panels which perform poorly at highly oblique angles. We design a moth-eye AR surface to increase power production on nano and micro-satellites by improving transmission of light, particularly at angles of incidence at or above 50◦ . We determine that during typical nano-satellite Earth observation missions (altitude 750 km, sun-synchronous orbit, 3U CubeSat configuration with surface mounted solar pan- els) the cumulative effect of increased transmission of light by moth-eye AR technology is to increase power production by 10% over each orbit. Moth-eye surface is fabricated on quartz coverglass using a combination of nano-sphere lithography, inductively coupled plasma etching and reactive ion etching techniques. The surface consists of a hexagonal array of quartz nano-cones; the spacing and height of the cones is optimized to suppress reection of incoming light for wavelengths between 350nm and 1800nm. We characterize the transmission and reection of the moth-eye AR surface as well as the performance of commercially available triple junction cells using moth-eye enhanced coverglass
Presentation
Moth-Eye Anti-Reflection for Small Satellites
In this paper we report on the design, fabrication and characterization of a bio-inspired moth-eye antireection (AR) surface designed to operate in the space environment. Nano and micro-satellites do not generally employ active solar arrays, opting instead for pas- sive, body mounted solar panels which perform poorly at highly oblique angles. We design a moth-eye AR surface to increase power production on nano and micro-satellites by improving transmission of light, particularly at angles of incidence at or above 50◦ . We determine that during typical nano-satellite Earth observation missions (altitude 750 km, sun-synchronous orbit, 3U CubeSat configuration with surface mounted solar pan- els) the cumulative effect of increased transmission of light by moth-eye AR technology is to increase power production by 10% over each orbit. Moth-eye surface is fabricated on quartz coverglass using a combination of nano-sphere lithography, inductively coupled plasma etching and reactive ion etching techniques. The surface consists of a hexagonal array of quartz nano-cones; the spacing and height of the cones is optimized to suppress reection of incoming light for wavelengths between 350nm and 1800nm. We characterize the transmission and reection of the moth-eye AR surface as well as the performance of commercially available triple junction cells using moth-eye enhanced coverglass
