Measurement of ablative laser propulsion parameters for aluminum, Co–Ni ferrite and polyurethane polymer

Laser ablation propulsion is a form of beam-powered propulsion in which a pulsed laser ablates a target material thus producing thrust. We report in this work the measurements of various parameters related to laser-induced micropropulsion in toluene diisocyanate-based polyurethane polymer, aluminum and Co–Ni ferrite. The targets were irradiated by a Q-switched pulsed Nd–YAG laser at 1064 nm (pulse duration 5 ns) under atmospheric conditions. A contact-free optical triangulation method was used to measure the laser ablation induced thrust in the samples. The measurements and calculations depict that Co–Ni ferrite is better in terms of critical propulsion parameters Cm and Isp. It has been observed that the propulsion parameters depend on the energy per pulse of the incident laser beam.