Material properties of silicon and silicon carbide foams

Abstract

Silicon and silicon carbide foams provide the lightweighting element for Schafer Corporation's silicon and silicon carbide lightweight mirror systems (SLMS and SiC-SLMS ). SLMS and SiC-SLMS provide the enabling technology for manufacturing lightweight, athermal optical sub-assemblies and instruments. Silicon and silicon carbide foam samples were manufactured and tested under a Schafer-funded Internal Research and Development program in various configurations to obtain mechanical and thermal property data. The results of the mechanical tests that are reported in this paper include Young's modulus, compression strength, tensile strength, Poisson's ratio and vibrational damping. The results of the thermal tests include thermal conductivity and coefficient of thermal expansion.