Award Data

Present thermoelectric devices operate at about 10% of the Carnot efficiency, whereas the efficiency of compressor-based refrigerators is larger than 30%. An increase in the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT above 3 is needed before thermoelectric technology can replace current air conditioning technologies in many applications. Recent models have predicted that ZT can reach 6 in metal/HgCdTe supe ...

The capability to reliably and remotely detect, identify and track biological aerosols is a critical need for the United States military. EPIR Technologies proposes to improve this capability by making use of the infrared signatures from biological aerosol broadband Mie scattering, comprising both mid and long wavelength infrared (MW/LWIR) components, as well as a potential polarization component. ...

NP Photonics proposes to develop a fiber-based, compact, tunable, THz spectroscopic/fingerprinting system that offers ultra-high resolution (< 1 MHz), high sensitivity and room temperature operation over the 1-3 THz range. This proposed system will provide high resolution molecular fingerprint information by leveraging NP Photonics high power and narrow linewidth fiber-based THz source, which is b ...

Highly scalable parallel random number generators (RNGs) will be developed, evaluated and implemented for use in high performance computing on thousands of multi-core processors and general purpose graphics processing units. The main contributions are: (a) design and implementation of new parallel test methods that capture the inter-stream correlations exhibited in practice and complement the curr ...

We will develop novel acousto-optic devices for use in the UV using the new material Barium Borate (BBO) which not only has the required UV transparency, but a unique combination of acoustic and optical properties. The capabilities provided by these new UV AO devices are ideally suited for optical addressing arrays of trapped ions with focused spots from appropriately tuned UV and visible lasers t ...

This STTR project seeks to develop a new manufacturing system for large-scale, low-cost production of bulk ultrafine grained (UFG) or nanostructured metals in plate, sheet or bar forms. These capabilities will be based on scale-up of a new class of machining-based processes called large strain extrusion machining (LSEM) that has been effective at creating high strength, nanoscale microstructures i ...

Micro-Gas Chromatographs (micro-GC) have the potential of providing a fieldable device that could 1) identify chemical threats in a battlefield, 2) provide assessment of warfighter health status, chemical exposure, stress level, and hydration, but we need better detectors if this potential is to become a reality. The objective of the proposed work to develop a micro-flame ionization detector (mi ...

The goal of this proposal is to develop a fuel injection system for direct-injection, spark-ignition, small engines that provides tunable atomization and good fuel-air mixture with low power consumption, low weight penalty, and small space footprint. The proposed method injects electric charge into an electrically insulating liquid, such as JP-8, within a specific atomizer design. The primary atom ...

An ultra-low noise integrated circuit for mercury cadmium telluride (HgCdTe) infrared detectors is proposed. Noise reduction techniques such as active noise cancellation are commercially successful and have been implemented using silicon-based integrated circuits to reduce background and externally-induced noise. While silicon dominates infrared sensor readout electronics, silicon-based circuits h ...

To satisfy Joint Services needs for the detection and identification of chemical and biological agents, infrared detectors must discriminate within a narrow spectral band tunable over large portions of the infrared spectrum. Currently, large, complex, power hungry and computationally intensive FTIR systems are used for this purpose. We propose here the integration of HgCdTe infrared emitter and de ...