MIT has developed a new manufacturing method for mirrors and wafers

In the past few decades, significant progress has been made in technologies that rely on lightweight, high-precision optical systems such as space telescopes, X-ray reflectors, and display panels, but more advanced advancements have been limited by seemingly simple challenges. For example, the surfaces of mirrors and flat plates that are necessary in these optical systems with microstructures will deform due to the surface coating materials under stress, thereby reducing optical quality. Traditional optical manufacturing methods are difficult to meet strict shape requirements.

Now, researchers Youwei Yao, Ralf Heilmann, and Mark Schattenburg from the Space Nanotechnology Laboratory (SNL) at the Calvary Institute of Astrophysics and Space Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as newly graduated Brandon Chalifoux (19-year-old PhD), have designed new methods to overcome this obstacle.

In the past few decades, significant progress has been made in technologies that rely on lightweight, high-precision optical systems such as space telescopes, X-ray reflectors, and display panels, but more advanced advancements have been limited by seemingly simple challenges. For example, the surfaces of mirrors and flat plates that are necessary in these optical systems with microstructures will deform due to the surface coating materials under stress, thereby reducing optical quality. Traditional optical manufacturing methods are difficult to meet strict shape requirements.

Now, researchers Youwei Yao, Ralf Heilmann, and Mark Schattenburg from the Space Nanotechnology Laboratory (SNL) at the Calvary Institute of Astrophysics and Space Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as newly graduated Brandon Chalifoux (19-year-old PhD), have designed new methods to overcome this obstacle.

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