Quantitative characterization of photonic sail candidates using nanocantilever displacement.

Demonstrations of photonically-propelled materials for solar and laser sailing have relied on indirect techniques for determining the propulsion efficiency. These methods, utilizing drop towers or cameras to determine differential displacement, are necessarily low-throughput and cannot be easily compared directly. Furthermore, the methods require sample sizes that are prohibitive to the fabrication of low TRL photonic materials (e.g. thin-film metasurfaces) that discourages rapid iterative testing. Herein, a nanocantilever-based test bed is proposed to simplify and standardize the determination of the characteristic acceleration for a given sail swatch. The proposed system is designed to allow for flexible, automated spectral analysis, requiring sample sizes ∼10 μm2. This system is scalable to the micro- and macroscale as material technologies mature and advance toward deployment scale. • Laser sources irradiating cantilever systems lead to measurable force deflection. • Quantify spectral characteristics of light sails for mission qualification. • Sail candidate materials may be directly tested for failure. • Requires swatches on the order of μm2. • Allows for high-throughput iteration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]