Broadband radiation pressure on a small period diffractive film.

Abstract

The p-polarization component of radiation pressure force from an unpolarized blackbody light source is predicted by the use of a Maxwell equation solver for a right triangular prism grating of period 2 μm and refractive index 3.5. The transmitted and reflected angular scattering distributions are found to qualitatively agree with diffraction theory: At relatively short wavelengths the transmitted light is concentrated near the refraction angle, and reflected light is concentrated near the reflection angle. Owing to diffraction and multiple internal reflections, however, the spectral irradiance of transmitted and reflected light was found to significantly vary with wavelength. We found that the high value of the refractive index produced a large fraction of reflected light, thereby reducing the net transverse component of radiation pressure force. These results suggest that low index transmission gratings, anti-reflection coatings, optimized metasurface films, or reflection gratings should be explored for future solar sailing missions.