Large-area Reflective Infrared Filters for Millimeter/sub-mm Telescopes
Z. Ahmed, J.A. Grayson, K.L. Thompson, C. L. Kuo, G. Brooks, T., Pothoven

TL;DR
This paper introduces laser etching as a scalable method for fabricating large-area reflective infrared filters, enabling sizes up to 700 mm for millimeter/sub-millimeter telescopes to better manage infrared loading.
Contribution
It presents a novel laser etching technique for creating large reflective infrared filters, overcoming photolithography size limitations.
Findings
Laser etching successfully produces 500 mm filters in lab tests.
Large-area filters up to 700 mm are feasible with current laser etching technology.
The method offers a scalable solution for infrared filtering in large telescopes.
Abstract
Ground-based millimeter and sub-millimeter telescopes are attempting to image the sky with ever-larger cryogenically-cooled bolometer arrays, but face challenges in mitigating the infrared loading accompanying large apertures. Absorptive infrared filters supported by mechanical coolers scale insufficiently with aperture size. Reflective metal-mesh filters placed behind the telescope window provide a scalable solution in principle, but have been limited by photolithography constraints to diameters under 300 mm. We present laser etching as an alternate technique to photolithography for fabrication of large-area reflective filters, and show results from lab tests of 500 mm-diameter filters. Filters with up to 700 mm diameter can be fabricated using laser etching with existing capability.
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