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Deposition of metal films on an ionic liquid as a basis for a lunar telescope

Abstract

An optical/infrared telescope of 20–100 m aperture located on the Moon would be able to observe objects 100 to 1,000 times fainter than the proposed next generation of space telescopes1. The infrared region of the spectrum is particularly important for observations of objects at redshifts z > 7. The apparent simplicity and low mass of a liquid mirror telescope, compared with a traditional pointable glass mirror, suggest that the concept should be considered further. A previously proposed liquid mirror telescope, based upon a spinning liquid metallic alloy2, is not appropriate for infrared applications, which will require a liquid below 130 K. Here we report the successful coating of an ionic liquid with silver. The surface is smooth and the silver coating is stable on a timescale of months. The underlying ionic liquid does not evaporate in a vacuum and remains liquid down to a temperature of 175 K. Given that there are 106 simple and 1018 ternary ionic liquids, it should be possible to synthesize liquids with even lower melting temperatures.

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Figure 1: Reflectivity curves obtained for silver-coated liquids.
Figure 2: Three-dimensional map of a small section of a silver-coated liquid mirror.

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Acknowledgements

We thank NASA for a NIAC grant and the Canadian Space Agency for primary funding. We also gratefully acknowledge the input from M. Deetlefs; K.R.S. also thanks the EPSRC for support.

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Correspondence to Ermanno F. Borra.

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Reprints and permissions information is available at www.nature.com/reprints. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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This file contains a Supplementary Discussion. It includes information on field of regard issues, technical details and ionic liquids. (PDF 1047 kb)

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Borra, E., Seddiki, O., Angel, R. et al. Deposition of metal films on an ionic liquid as a basis for a lunar telescope. Nature 447, 979–981 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05909

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