Laser propulsion with a high specific impulse using a thin film propellant

Abstract

A new laser propulsion scheme with a high specific impulse is proposed in this paper. An extremely thin polyimide film is used as the propellant to eliminate thermal diffusion and sputter from the target material. It is found that a high specific impulse of 1520 s can be achieved at 1011-W/cm2 laser intensity because of economic use of the propellant. The influences of the laser intensity and the ablation area on the specific impulse are also studied in the experiment.