1. Home .
  2. Products .
  3. Mirrors and stable structures

Back

Mirrors and stable structures

SiC space optics Mersen
silicon carbide telescope mirror Mersen
SiC optical instrumentation Mersen

Silicon carbide SiC (advanced ceramics) for ground & space telescopes and scientific instrumentation

Boostec® SiC provides an ideal solution for instruments requiring exceptional thermomechanical stability.

Using Boostec® technology, whole instruments can be made in SiC: structure and detector supports as well as the mirrors themselves.

The optical face of the mirrors can receive a SiC CVD coating to produce a completely non-porous surface, for a flawless polishable finish.

Space optical instrumentation: more than 10 years of unique know-how

Mersen Boostec designs and makes:

  • monolithic parts up to:
    • 1,25 m in diameter for circular parts
    • 1,70 x 1,20 x 0,60 m for rectangular parts
  • braze-assembled SiC parts up to:
    • 3,5 m in diameter.

Mersen Boostec's know-how also extends to structural bonding and bolting techniques for assembling SiC parts together or with parts made of other materials.

Mersen Boostec is involved in several public and private programmes in space optics, ground telescopes and large instruments:

  • Herschel: space telescope launched in 2009 with a primary mirror measuring 3.5 m in diameter (the largest in space), made up of 12 sintered silicon carbide segments assembled by brazing. 
  • Gaia: ESA global astrometry mission (European Space Agency), launched in December 2013. 
  • Sentinel 2: ESA optical imagery mission: 2 satellites equipped with high resolution multispectral instrument.

Product Literature

Boostec® SiC sintered silicon carbide

Download

2.14 MB

Boostec® SiC sintered silicon carbide

Boostec® silicon carbide - data

Boostec® silicon carbide - data

Boostec® SiC sintered silicon carbide

Download

2.14 MB

Boostec® SiC sintered silicon carbide

Boostec® silicon carbide - data

Boostec® silicon carbide - data

Markets

Transportation

Markets

Transportation