Paper
1 November 1990 Laser-mirror cleaning in a simulated space environment
Vicky G. Pierce, Michael B. Frish, B. David Green, Lawrence G. Piper, James J. Guregian, Michael I. Anapol
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
The efficacy of pulsed CO2 lasers is demonstrated for remote removal of contaminants from cryogenic, low-scatter mirrors in a simulated space environment. A gold-overcoated, nickel-coated aluminum mirror was housed in a vacuum dewar and cooled to either 90 K with liquid nitrogen or 34 K with liquid-helium cryogen. Admitting a controlled leak of room-air contaminated the mirror. Bidirectionl reflectance distribution function (BRDF) measurements at 3, 6, and 9 deg monitored the amount of contamination on the mirror. Upon contamination, the mirror BRDF generally increased by an order of magnitude or more. Using an x-y scanner to raster a pulsed CO2-laser beam across the face of the mirror, successful cleaning of sizable areas (25 sq cm) of the mirror was demonstrated at both temperatures. In all cases the laser-cleaning technique returned the BRDF of the mirror to precontamination levels and showed no evidence for contaminant redeposition within the cleaned area.
© (1990) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Vicky G. Pierce, Michael B. Frish, B. David Green, Lawrence G. Piper, James J. Guregian, and Michael I. Anapol "Laser-mirror cleaning in a simulated space environment", Proc. SPIE 1329, Optical System Contamination: Effects, Measurement, Control II, (1 November 1990); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.22621
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KEYWORDS
Mirrors

Bidirectional reflectance transmission function

Carbon dioxide lasers

Contamination

Liquids

Cryogenics

Nitrogen

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