CARBOSURF™ Surface Modification Technology for Charge Dissipative and Radio-Transparent GEO Durable Space Polymers

Abstract

A new surface modification technology has been developed to make the surface of a number of advanced thin polymer films charge dissipative and, at the same time, RF transmissive, with or without influence on the thermal optical properties, as required for specific applications. This ion beam treatment for surface carbonization technology, tentatively named CARBOSURF™, has been successfully applied to hydrocarbon thin space polymer films, Kapton HN polyimide and Upilex S, as well as tried for space‐related partially fluorinated polymers CP‐1, clear and filled with white pigment. Ground‐based simulation testing has been conducted on selected pristine and surface‐modified space‐related thin polymer film specimens to estimate the space life of those materials in GEO space conditions. Combined proton, electron, and UV exposure has been used for GEO simulating testing. The performed GEO simulated testing has shown high stability of the CARBOSURF™‐treated polymer films for multi‐year applications in GEO environment. The treatment was achieved using moderate‐energy and low‐energy intensive technological ion beam sources of noble gases and was shown to be transferrable for industrial implementation and scale‐up. The developed ion beam treatment surface modification technology has a number of strong innovative components, and the treated space polymer films may be used in many space applications.