Award Data

The development of a truly solid state high power lithium battery is dependent upon the successful identification of a suitable solid polymer electrolyte. Polymer electrolytes hold the promise of allowing use of lithium metal anodes which could boost thetheoretcial energy density of batteries by as much as 35%. Addition of new high voltage cathodes would result in a high energy, high power lithiu ...

OPTICAL COMPUTERS ARE RECOGNIZED AS POTENTIALLY USEFUL ELEMENTS IN THEQUEST TO MEET THE INTENSE BATTLE MANAGEMENT COMPUTATIONAL REQUIREMENTSOF STRATEGIC DEFENSE. CURRENTLY, OPTICAL COMPUTERS ARE GREATLY LIMITED IN PERFORMANCE BECAUSE NO EXISTING NONLINEAR LIGHT MODULATION DEVICE SIMULTANEOUSLY OFFERS FAST OPTICAL SWITCHING WITH THRESHOLD HIGH GAMMA, HIGH SPATIAL BANDWIDTH, LOW POWER DISSIPATION, O ...

"ALTAIR Center proposes to develop a miniature, cost-effective fiber optic sensor array for detection of toxic heavy metal ions. The main detection principle is based on dual measurement of both absorption and fluorescence employing thin films ofporphyrin/polymer membrane. In Phase I of the project we studied the luminescence compounds and demonstrated that thin films of porphyrin-based membranes ...

A solid-state, dense, random optical cross-switch is commercializedto fill needs in the commercial metro-core telecom market, and to supplyrapid, multi-channel, covert, and frequency agile optical communications tothe national missile defense initiative. The optical switch is based uponFabry-Perot and Holographically Dispersed Liquid Crystal (H-PDLC) technology.The deliverable is entirely solid s ...

"For directed energy applications such as the Airborne Laser (ABL) and other high energy laser systems, there still needs to be significant improvements in laser output power, brightness, stability, efficiency, as well as compactness and ruggedness.The proposed research will demonstrate the feasibility of a phase-locked array of fiber lasers using a proprietary technology developed in the Phase I ...

"All-optical switches capable of rapidly switching light with light are needed for missile defense in the Airborne-Laser, Space-Based Laser and Space-Based Infrared System as well as in Big Safari special mission aircraft. While the commercial and militaryusefulness of optical-electrical-optical switches for security, recognition and switching applications is well established, these devices are s ...

"Most single- and multi-target tracking algorithms are designed to track point targets.However, in many real-world applications the targets of interest are not point targets butEXTENDED TARGETS and GROUP TARGETS, e.g. missile re-entry clusters.Under this effort we propose a systematic, fully probabilistic, and theoretically rigorousapproach to cluster target tracking and discrimination. Our approa ...

RECHARGEABLE POWER SOURCES POSSESSING HIGH ENERGY DENSITIES, BRIEF BUTREPETITIVE HIGH CURRENT OUTPUTS, AND THOUSANDS OF DUTY CYCLES ARE REQUIRED FOR STRATEGIC DEFENSE SYSTEMS. TO ADDRESS THESE NEEDS, HIGH SURFACE AREA, THIN FILM CATHODES ARE BEING FABRICATED FOR AMBIENT TEMPERATURE LITHIUM BATTERIES. THESE CATHODES FEATURE AN ARRAY OF APPROXIMATELY L MICROMETER MICROCRYSTALLITE TIS2 PLATES ORIENTE ...

THE OBJECTIVE OF THE PHASE II PROJECT IS TO EXPERIMENTALLY DEMONSTRATE THE PERFORMANCE OF SMALL STIRLING CYCLE CRYOCOOLER WITH INNOVATIVE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION FEATURES. THE EFFORT ENTAILS DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF COMPONENTS, INTEGRATION INTO AN ENGINEERING MODEL CRYOCOOLER, AND TESTING OF THE CRYOCOOLER FOR PERFORMANCE AND ENDURANCE. ANTICIPATED BENEFITS OF THE INNOVATIVE DESIGN INCLUDE FIVE ...

A PROGRAM TO DEVELOP ELECTROCHROMIC DEVICES CAPABLE OF FAST TRANSMISSIVE TO REFLECTIVE OPTICAL SWITCHING IS PROPOSED. THESE DEVICES WOULD BE USED FOR OPTICAL HARDENING IN THE WAVELENGTH RANGE FROM 0.615 MICROMWTERS. OPTICAL SWITCHING ELEMENTS BASED ON SINGLE CRYSTAL LAYERS OR EPITAXIAL FILMS OF THE METAL DICHALOCOGENIDES ZRS(2) AND HF(2) WOULD BE DEVELOPED. WE PROPOSE TO INTERCALATE SINGLE CRYSTAL ...