Additive manufacturing in ceramics: targeting lightweight mirror applications in the visible, ultraviolet and X-ray

Additive manufacturing (AM; 3D printing) has clear benefits in the production of lightweight mirrors for astronomy: it can create optimised lightweight structures and combine multiple components into one. New capabilities in AM ceramics, silicon carbide infiltrated with silicon and fused silica, off...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors Atkins, Carolyn, Chahid, Younes, Lister, Gregory, Tuck, Rhys, Isherwood, David, Yu, Nan, Sun, Rongyan, Noto, Itsuki, Yamamura, Kazuya, Civitani, Marta, Vecchi, Gabriele, Pareschi, Giovanni, Alcock, Simon G, Nistea, Ioana-Theodora, Da Silva, Murilo Bazan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 07.07.2024
Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Physics - Optics
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Summary:Additive manufacturing (AM; 3D printing) has clear benefits in the production of lightweight mirrors for astronomy: it can create optimised lightweight structures and combine multiple components into one. New capabilities in AM ceramics, silicon carbide infiltrated with silicon and fused silica, offer the possibility to combine the design benefits of AM with a material suitable for visible, ultraviolet and X-ray applications. This paper will introduce the printing methods and post-processing steps to convert AM ceramic samples into reflective mirrors. Surface roughness measurements after abrasive polishing of the AM ceramics will be presented.
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2407.05314