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

Nature volume 447, pages 979–981 (2007)Cite this article

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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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Département de Physique, Génie Physique et Optique, Centre d'Optique, Photonique et Lasers, Université Laval, Québec, G1K 7P4, Canada,

    Ermanno F. Borra & Omar Seddiki

  2. Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona, 933 N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson, Arizona 8575, USA,

    Roger Angel & Daniel Eisenstein

  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z1, Canada,

    Paul Hickson

  4. The QUILL Centre, The Queen’s University of Belfast, Stranmillis Road, Belfast BT9 5AG, UK,

    Kenneth R. Seddon

  5. Office of the Director, NASA Ames Research Center. Moffett Field, California 9403, USA,

    Simon P. Worden

Authors
  1. Ermanno F. Borra
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  2. Omar Seddiki
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  4. Daniel Eisenstein
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  6. Kenneth R. Seddon
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Correspondence to Ermanno F. Borra.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

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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