Liquid crystal polarization rotators for the miniaturized absolute magnetometer (MAM) of the NanoMagSat space mission

Pilar Garcia Parejo; Angel Jimenez Girela; Daniel Merino-Perez; Antonio Campos-Jara; Manuel Silva-López; Thomas Jager; William Fourcault; Francois Bertrand; Jean Michael Leger; Alberto Álvarez-Herrero

doi:10.1117/12.3013767

7 June 2024 Liquid crystal polarization rotators for the miniaturized absolute magnetometer (MAM) of the NanoMagSat space mission

Pilar Garcia Parejo, Angel Jimenez Girela, Daniel Merino-Perez, Antonio Campos-Jara, Manuel Silva-López, Thomas Jager, William Fourcault, Francois Bertrand, Jean Michael Leger, Alberto Álvarez-Herrero

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 13050, Polarization: Measurement, Analysis, and Remote Sensing XVI; 130500G (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3013767
Event: SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing, 2024, National Harbor, Maryland, United States

Abstract

Liquid Crystal Polarization Rotators (LCPRs) have been developed for the Miniaturized Absolute Magnetometer (MAM) instrument in NanoMagSat project, an ESA’s SCOUT program mission. This project consists of a constellation of three nanosatellites aimed to study the Earth’s magnetic and ionospheric environment based on a 16U CubeSat-type structure. The MAM instrument is an optically pumped scalar and vector magnetometer derived from the ASM flown on the ESA Swarm mission. In this type of instruments, a device to rotate the direction of the incident linear polarization of the pumping beam injected into the helium-4 gas cell sensor is required. In NanoMagSat, the LCPRs will replace the sensor head rotor driven by a piezoelectric motor used in the ASM, allowing a very significant miniaturization of the sensor head. The LCPRs developed are miniaturized devices derived from the polarization modulators based on liquid crystals of PHI and METIS instruments on board the Solar Orbiter mission and optimized for the MAM instrument requirements. The key performance parameters of the devices have been evaluated in a validation test campaign, under the different environmental conditions expected in NanoMagSat, including the polarization rotation and the Polarization Extinction Ratio (PER) as a function of voltage, and the response times at the MAM polarization rotation scheme and will be presented in this work. Based on the results found, the LCPRs design and validation test campaign has been considered successful and they have been approved to be implemented for the NanoMagSat mission.

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(2024) Published by SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

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Pilar Garcia Parejo, Angel Jimenez Girela, Daniel Merino-Perez, Antonio Campos-Jara, Manuel Silva-López, Thomas Jager, William Fourcault, Francois Bertrand, Jean Michael Leger, and Alberto Álvarez-Herrero "Liquid crystal polarization rotators for the miniaturized absolute magnetometer (MAM) of the NanoMagSat space mission", Proc. SPIE 13050, Polarization: Measurement, Analysis, and Remote Sensing XVI, 130500G (7 June 2024); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3013767

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