Design of Reflective, Photonic Shields for Atmospheric Reentry

Nikolay Komarevskiy, Valery Shklover, Leonid Braginsky, Christian Hafner, Olga Fabrichnaya, Susan White, John Lawson

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DOI: 10.4236/jemaa.2011.36037                

Abstract

We present the design of one-dimensional photonic crystal structures, which can be used as omnidirectional reflecting shields against radiative heating of space vehicles entering the Earth’s atmosphere. This radiation is approximated by two broad bands centered at visible and nearinfrared energies. We applied two approaches to find structures with the best omnidirectional reflecting performance. The first approach is based on a band gap analysis and leads to structures composed of stacked Bragg mirrors. In the second approach, we optimize the structure using an evolutionary strategy. The suggested structures are compared with a simple design of two stacked Bragg mirrors. Choice of the constituent materials for the layers as well as the influence of interlayer diffusion at high temperatures are discussed.

Keywords

Multilayers, Reflective Coatings, Optimization

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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