Optical problem concerning space mirror.

[fatjohn]

Main Question or Discussion Point

When designing a space based energy satellite for our project, we ran across the option to just use a mirror to reflect extra light to a photovoltaic ground station on earth. The main difficulty of this option is that due to the fact that the light coming from the south pole of the sun hits the mirror with a different angle then the light coming from the north pole a 336 kilometer wide circle on earth would be illuminated.
Is there any way to overcome this problem either with a configuration of lenses or with certain metamaterials or nanomaterials? It seems to me that at a certain (focal) point on the mirror light hits it in a various different angles. This is a problem that to my knowledge cannot be overcome with macro devices. Anybody has a proposition?

Thank you for your attention.

 

[mgb_phys]

Is there any way to overcome this problem either with a configuration of lenses or with certain metamaterials or nanomaterials?

Or you could just use a concave mirror
You are trying to make an image of the sun on the ground

 

[fatjohn]

Or you could just use a concave mirror
You are trying to make an image of the sun on the ground

Yes I am trying to make an image of the sun on the ground but i am trying to make that image as small as possible. A concave mirror cannot do the job this is because at one point of the mirror the light comes in at a variaty of angles.

 

[mgb_phys]

That is true of any lens or mirror making an image of a finite object.

You have an extra constraint that the mirror-image distance (and so focal length) is restricted which sets the minimum size of the image.