August 18, 2021
Student, professor publish paper on light sails
Prateek Srivastava, an imaging science Ph.D. student, is the lead author in the European Physical Journal Plus along with Grover Swartzlander, professor in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science. “Optomechanics of a stable diffractive axicon light sail” demonstrates how a laser-propelled light sail is expected to follow a stable trajectory in space when the sail is made from a diffraction grating that scatters light toward the axis of the sail.