Advanced protection against environmental degradation of silver mirror stacks for space application

摘要

Protection of silver mirror stacks from environmental degradation before launching is crucial for space applications.Hereby,we report a comparative study of the advanced protection of silver mirror stacks for space telescopes provided by SiO_(2)and Al_(2)O_(3)coatings in conditions of accelerated aging by sulfida-tion.The model silver stack samples were deposited by cathodic magnetron sputtering on a reference silica substrate for optical applications and a surface-pretreated SiC substrate.Accelerated aging was per-formed in dry and more severe wet conditions.Optical micrographic observations,surface and interface analysis by Time-of Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry(ToF-SIMS)and reflectivity measurements were combined to comparatively study the effects of degradation.The results show a lower kinetics of degradation by accelerated aging of the stacks protected by the alumina coating in comparable test conditions.