Award Data

Temperature is the critical signal that allows monitoring of a myriad of Earth’s processes. From direct measurements of wildfire and urban heat to more complex relationships with drought, agriculture, aquaculture, and biodiversity, maintaining a steady pulse on Earth’s surface temperature enables us to mitigate for and adapt to the impacts of extreme events and increasingly variable water avai ...

The brevetoxins (PbTx) produced by Karenia brevis cause harmful algal blooms (HAB) or "red tide" in seawater. Currently, the only available ways of detecting PbTx are laboratory tests such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, which are expensive and slow, and require complex instrumentation and multiple processing steps. In previous work Intelligent Optical Systems (IOS) demonstrated a compact l ...

Actoprobe LLC proposes development of a novel class of Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) active optical probes with dramatically increased sensitivity and spatial resolution for Near-Field Optical Nanospectroscopy and Nanoscopy. The innovation is accomplished by integrating a diode laser source and a photodetector into a silicon AFM probe in such a way that both the AFM tip and detector are inside the ...

Modern lithium ion batteries are known for their poor safety performance, with many reports of battery failure and fire having been reported. One of the major causes of battery fire is from the use of flammable solvents, such as organic carbonates, as the electrolyte. These hazards have long limited the usage of batteries in dangerous conditions, such as on the battlefield. To combat this issue, t ...

Farming of marine bivalves provides high-quality protein and has a positive impact on the coastal environment. The U.S. is a top producer of the Manila clam (Japanese carpet shell, Ruditapes philippinarum) with reported sales of $31 M in 2019. Production of clams, however, has depended almost entirely on seed from wild stocks and natural recruitment, leaving the industry vulnerable to ocean change ...

In an effort to maintain the advantage of today’s SOF operators, a new weapon mounted laser pointer and illuminator system is proposed. To increase survivability and lethality of the operator, the system will minimize size and weight while improving performance, reliability and operability. The development of a new laser based variable divergence illuminator will provide ideal beam clarity over ...

Recurring environmental extremes and disease events threaten large plantings of high-value perennial crops. Due to environmental and economic drivers, the demand for highest-quality, disease-free, true-to-type planting material in large volumes for vegetatively propagated high-value perennial crops is predicted to increase substantially in the next decades. This demand can be rapidly fulfilled thr ...

To enhance U.S. Navy operations, a technology platform will be developed for fabricating environmentally robust, visible through near-infrared (NIR) band transparent, tapered resistivity films. After refining the operational requirements and updating the device design models, a design trade study will be performed using the measured electrical (i.e., conductivity) and optical (i.e., spectral trans ...

Modern lithium ion batteries are known for their poor safety performance, with many reports of battery failure and fire having been reported. One of the major causes of battery fire is from the use of flammable solvents, such as organic carbonates, as the electrolyte. These hazards have long limited the usage of batteries in dangerous conditions, such as on the battlefield. To combat this issue, f ...

In an effort to maintain the advantage of today’s SOF operators, a new weapon mounted laser pointer and illuminator system with laser range finding capability out to 900 meters is proposed. To increase survivability and lethality of the operator, the system will minimize size and weight while improving performance, reliability and operability. The development of a new laser based variable diverg ...