Award Data

Sivananthan Laboratories (SL) with the University of Iowa as the STTR partner, proposes to develop metasurface-coupled type II superlattice (T2SL) LWIR detectors that are predicted to outperform HgCdTe detectors. We developed in Phase I fundamental understanding of metasurface-coupled T2SLs, likely performance, and issues related to scaling up device structure to form arrays for LWIR imaging. In P ...

Sb-based III-V semiconductor Type-II superlattice (T2SL) materials with band structure-engineered device architectures are groundbreaking for infrared detectors and focal plane arrays (FPAs). T2SL FPAs have become very attractive candidates for various MDA/DOD sensor platforms including air, space, ships, and missiles. T2SL wafers, the starting materials of FPAs, are grown on large substrates usin ...

The proposed program will design a microwave interferometer for the purpose of measuring the electron density and other fundamental parameters of Diode-Pumped Alkali Laser (DPAL) gain media. Although several models of the collisional chemistry of DPALs exist, benchmarking such models with experimental measurements has been hampered by the absence of experimental measurements of the electron densit ...

Sivananthan Laboratories, Inc. with the University of Iowa proposes two major improvements to superlattice (SL) detector technology which are predicated to enhance the LWIR imaging performance comparable or better than HgCdTe-based detector performance. The performance of the current SL detectors is limited by the prevalence of native point defects (NPDs), thicker SL absorber region as required by ...

CU Aerospace (CUA) and team partner Lockheed Martin Space (LMS) propose to develop a low-cost and more efficient cryocooler cold head designed for 5 W cooling at 77 K, and to begin the process of certifying CUA’s innovative approach to provide CUA-built cold head subassemblies to LMS in order to reduce cryocooler costs. Materials and materials processing expertise at CUA will be used to investig ...

Sivananthan Laboratories, Inc. (Sivananthan Labs) will create a multiscale model capable of predicting the immediate and long-term effects of radiation events in operating and dormant infrared (IR) photodetector devices. Although extensible to any IR gap semiconductor and device architecture, the model will initially be developed for and applied to mid-wavelength IR (MWIR) and long-wavelength IR ( ...

CU Aerospace (CUA) and team partner Lockheed Martin Space (LMS) propose to develop a low-cost cryocooler cold head designed for 5 W cooling at 77 K, and to certify CU Aerospace as a provider of cold head subassemblies to Lockheed Martin in order to reduce cryocooler costs. Materials and materials processing expertise at CUA will be used investigate lower-cost ways to make heat exchangers and regen ...

Presently, heavy-ion radiation testing of electronics relies on bringing samples to large particle accelerator facilities. To reduce the size of a heavy-ion accelerator and to bring the accelerator to the end users, we turn our attention to lasers. Short-pulse (fs) lasers capable of high powers and high intensities are useful for the generation and acceleration of ions. The interaction of an inten ...

CU Aerospace (CUA) and team partners San Jose St. University (SJSU) and Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company (LMSSC) propose to develop a robust epoxy resin regenerator capable of improving cryocooler efficiency by more than 30%, and to design an enhanced compressor motor capable of improving the cryocooler efficiency by more than 20%. LMSSC manufactures a space cryocooler that already meets most ...

The aim is to demonstrate that Type-II InAs/GaSb superlattices (T2SLs) will exhibit significantly improved radiation hardness in comparison to the existing state-of-the-art HgCdTe-based sensors. T2SL-based sensors consist of III-V compound semiconductors which have much stronger bonding than II-VI-based sensors, and should be less susceptible to ionizing and nuclear particle radiation. This will ...