Award Data

The primary objective of CU Aerospace's Phase I work will be to investigate innovative iodine injection concepts for the chemical oxygen-iodine laser (COIL) that improve mixing at higher total pressures. The designs will be made to significantly improve the pressure recovery of COIL systems while retaining efficiency. The results of the Phase I research will lay the foundation for developing a h ...

Lead in household paint and dust is a serious health hazard as low level lead exposure can result in a number o adverse health effects, especially in children. On-site and real-time detection and quantification of lead in the paint/dust is very important to homeowners and certified lead-based paint removal professionals. Toward this end, both field-portable equipment (such as x-ray fluorescence ...

Many advanced HgCdTe (MCT) infrared detector structures are grown by the molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) technique, which is especially sensitive to small imperfections, impurities, precipitates, and polishing damage on the substrate surface. In order to achieve very high crystalline quality MCT structures, the substrate surface must be of superior quality (MBE-quality). EPIR demonstrated the ability ...

The MDA's request to detect, track and discriminate long range targets requires infrared focal plane arrays (IRFPAs) that have higher sensitivities, longer cutoff wavelengths (>14 µm), larger formats (> 256 x 256), and higher operating temperatures than the current infrared technology. PbSnTe is an ideal material for the MDA's requirements. Its carrier mobilities and quantum efficiencies are comp ...

Perchlorate is a widely-used component of solid fuel, missile and rocket propellants, explosives and pyrotechnics. It has been shown to reduce iodide uptake into the thyroid gland. The EPA has found Perchlorate contamination in 18 states and believes contamination may exist in as many as 39 states. In early January 2005, the National Academy of sciences, in an EPA-sponsored study, recommended a ...

Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) maintenance costs are high, making up as much as 60-70% of the total system life-cycle cost. Moreover, inefficient maintenance policies and procedures can have adverse national security ramifications. We propose a Global visibility and Central Command approach to meet the maintenance and inventory management challenges. The proposed system consists of thre ...

End-to-end communications systems are often so complex that system designers have difficulty keeping track of the constraints, trades, interface requirements, and interdependencies among components. The Communications System Taxonomy (CommTax) and Toolkit proposed herein represents further refinement of an innovative tool that Infinite Global Infrastructures has recently developed internally to as ...

C2BMC is an important component of BMDS. The logistics support tail sustainment challenges in C2BMC are related to the unusual spiral development process employed by C2BMC. Formal metrics such as MTTR and MLDT have not been defined. Nor have spare parts analysis, training needs analysis or documentation support issues been formalized. There is enormous scope for both process re-engineering and tec ...

Very long wavelength infrared (VLWIR) detectors are highly needed for midcourse phase missile defense. Blocked impurity band detectors are capable of sensing at these wavelengths but require extremely low temperatures, in the 10K or less range. The InAs/GaSb Type II heterostructure system offers unique design flexibility for new innovative detectors. By incorporating dark current reduction techniq ...

The objective of this proposal is to further explore PbSnSe detector array on Si substrate. Two approaches are proposed. One is a zero-risk incremental advance that employs a new growth condition to reduce the dislocation density. Another approach is a novel fabrication technique with high-risk but it could enable revolutionary rather than evolutionary advances. IV-VI semiconductors such as Pb1-x ...