Revolutionary microshutter technology by NASA improved ALD

NASA technologists have hurdled a number of significant technological challenges in their quest to improve an already revolutionary observing technology originally created for the James Webb Space Telescope.

 

 

 

The team, led by Principal Investigator Harvey Moseley, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, has demonstrated that electrostatically actuated microshutter arrays — that is, those activated by applying an specific voltage — are as functional as the current technology’s magnetically activated arrays. This advance makes them a highly attractive capability for potential Explorer-class missions designed to perform multi-object observations.

“We have identified real applications — three scientists want to use our microshutter arrays and the commercial sector has expressed interest,” said Mary Li, a Goddard engineer who is working with Moseley and other team members to fully develop this already groundbreaking observing technology. “The electrostatic concept has been fully demonstrated and our focus now is on making these devices highly reliable.”

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Through experimentation, the team used atomic layer deposition, a state-of-the-art fabrication technology, to fully insulate the tiny space between the electrodes to eliminate potential electrical crosstalk that could interfere with the arrays’ operation.

Full story as reported by NASA here.