Award Data

SixPoint Materials will create low-cost, high-quality vertical gallium nitride (GaN) substrates using a multi-phase production approach that employs both hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) technology and ammonothermal growth techniques to lower costs and maintain crystal quality. Substrates are thin wafers of semiconducting material needed for power devices. In its two-phase project, SixPoint Mate ...

NanoSD, Inc. with its partners will develop a transparent, nanostructured thermally insulating film that can be applied to existing single-pane windows to reduce heat loss. To produce the nanostructured film, the team will create hollow ceramic or polymer nanobubbles and consolidate them into a dense lattice structure using heat and compression. Because it is mostly air, the resulting nanobubble s ...

Launch vehicles experience extreme acoustic loads during liftoff driven by the interaction of rocket plumes and plume-generated acoustic waves with ground structures. Currently employed predictive capabilities are too dissipative to accurately resolve the propagation of waves throughout the launch environment. Higher fidelity non-dissipative analysis tools are critically needed to design mitigatio ...

The liberation of particles induced by rocket plume flow from spacecraft landing on unprepared regolith of the Moon, Mars, and other destinations poses high mission risks for robotic and human exploration activities. This process occurs in a combination of "extreme environments" that combine low gravity, little or no atmosphere, rocket exhaust gas flow that is supersonic and partially rarefied, an ...

Advances in structured heterogeneity together with nanomaterials tailoring has made it possible to create thermoelectrics using high temperature, polymer composites. While such thermoelectrics do not have the capability to approach the efficiency of top performing ceramic modules such as BiTe, they do provide two unique aspects of use in energy scavenging: the ability to conform to irregular large ...

A hybrid electric aircraft simulation system and test bed is proposed to provide a dedicated development environment for the rigorous study and advancement of hybrid electric powered aircraft. The new test bed and simulation system will provide a dedicated platform and set of analysis tools to study, design, and test hybrid electric powered propulsion components and systems for use in commercial, ...

The objective of this proposal is to integrate three unique energy harvesting technologies utilizing our existing research strengths that will be of interest and utility to NASA applications and environmental conditions. By developing multiple technologies, NASA will be able to harvest energy from multiple waste energy sources, namely environmental vibrations, thermal energy, and solar flux. These ...

American GNC Corporation (AGNC) and Louisiana Tech University (LaTECH) are proposing a significant breakthrough technology, the Integrated Monitoring AWAReness Environment (IM-AWARE) consisting of an Enterprise Infrastructure with closely coupled smart sensor networks and Enhanced IT Security to enable: (i) real time monitoring of the distribution systems health; (ii) supporting maintenance operat ...

Chromologic (CL) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) propose to continue the Phase II STTR development and demonstration of a Multifunctional Environmental Digital Scanning Electron Microprobe (MEDSEM) instrument that transmits high energy beams of electrons sequentially using a two-dimensional array of multiple, miniaturized electron probes into a planetary atmosphere and strike ...

The gas sensor in the PLSS of the ISS EMU will meet its projected life in 2020, and NASA is planning to replace it. At present, only high TRL devices based on infrared absorption are candidate replacements, because of their proven long-term stability, despite their size and power consumption and failures in the presence of liquid water. No current compact sensor has the tolerance for liquid water ...