The Starshot Breakthrough Initiative established in 2016 sets an audacious goal of sending
a spacecraft beyond our Solar System to a neighbouring star within the next half-century. Its …

Light is a powerful tool to manipulate matter, but existing approaches often necessitate
focused, high-intensity light that limits the manipulated object's shape, material and size …

In this work, an all‐dielectric photonic metasurface with a flat macroscopic geometry is
shown to provide a viable solution toward realization of a relativistic light sail driven by …

A passively stable laser-driven lightsail is described, which makes use of a spatially variant
“bi-grating” sail with a mass (payload) attached to a boom (patent pending). A two …

A lightsail accelerated via directed energy is a candidate technology to send a probe into the
deep space in a time period compatible with human life. The light emitted by a ground …

Beamed propulsion of a light sail based on radiation pressure benefits from a passively self-
stabilizing “beam riding” diffractive film. We describe the optomechanics of a rigid non …

An optical beam rider making use of a light sail comprising two opposing diffraction gratings
is experimentally demonstrated for the first time. We verify that the illuminated space-variant …

The photonic propulsion of lightsails can be used to accelerate spacecraft to relativistic
velocities, providing a feasible route for the exploration of interstellar space in the human …

Laser-driven metasails can enable reaching velocities far beyond the chemically propelled
spacecrafts, which accounts for precise engineering of the acceleration and the stability …

Traveling to outer space has long fascinated humanity, but the astronomical distances
restrain us within our solar system. Laser-driven spacecraft is a promising candidate for …