Controlled levitation of nanostructured thin films for sun-powered near-space flight
Controlled levitation of nanostructured thin films for sun-powered near-space flight
We report light-driven levitation of macroscopic polymer films whose bottom surface is engineered to maximize the thermal accommodation coefficient. Specifically, we levitated centimeter-scale disks made of commercial 0.5-micron-thick mylar film coated with carbon nanotubes on one side. When illuminated with light intensity comparable to natural sunlight, the polymer disk heats …