Long term stability of optical coatings in close solar environment

Close observations of the solar atmosphere and surface are required in order to understand the solar activity and its influence on Earth. This task will be performed from Solar Orbiter mission which will reach a very close distance from the Sun: the minimum perihelion distance will be only 0.28 AU. At these distances, the spacecraft and instruments are immersed in a very harsh environment characterized by high temperature, solar wind particles and ions. The stability of the optical coatings at these working conditions are a crucial point in an instrument design and a thorough investigation of the environment effects must be carried out for a secure validation. In this work we present the first experiment carried on in laboratory to establish the effect of solar wind low energy particles bombardment in some optical coatings.

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