Award Data

Proliferation of nuclear weapons is a serious threat in the world today. One way to determine the presence of nuclear weapons is to detect neutrons emitted by special nuclear material(SNM) such as highly enriched uranium and weapons grade plutonium. The purpose of this project is to develop improved solid state neutron detectors from CVD diamond for homeland security applications. Phase I work wil ...

The use and applications of radiological sources, for power, medical, and defense applications, continuously increases with time. Illicit nuclear materials represent a threat for the safety of the American citizens and the detection and interdiction of a nuclear weapon is a national problem that has not been yet solved. This represents an enormous challenge to current detection methods and monitor ...

Boston MicroSystems (BMS) proposes to develop a cell-phone sized instrument for detecting hazardous chemical and explosive threats. The instrument is based on BMS' PicoSensor® chemical and explosives detection platform, which has been developed in part under DHS support and is capable of sensing explosives and toxic chemicals at ppb and even ppt (trillion) levels. The Picoensor® consists of a ME ...

THE SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO OF INFRARED DETECTORS INCREASES DRAMATICALLYAS THE TEMPERATURE OF THE DETECTOR IS REDUCED TO CRYOGENIC TEMPERATURES AND THERE HAS BEEN A SUBSTANTIAL IMPROVEMENT IN CRYOCOOLERS TO MEET THIS NEED. HOWEVER, VALVES OF ONE TYPE OF CRYOCOOLER, THE JOULE-THOMPSON EXPANSION CRYOCOOLER, ARE PRONE TO PLUGGING BY THE FREEZING OF IMPURITIES IN THE HIGH-PRESSURE STREAM. TO ADDRESS THI ...

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 ...

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 ...

Ion mobility spectrometer based explosives trace detectors (ETD) have been widely used in airport check points, ports of entry, government buildings, and other high security facilities. Most of these systems require manual collection of trace particles from vehicles via direct swabbing of surface areas of interest. Sample collection efficiency and inconsistency pose significant challenges to the e ...

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Automatic extraction of actionable intelligence from collaborative sensors in a framework that supports seamless exchange of extracted information across sensor layers while leveraging the human in the loop is the focus our proposal. Depending upon the specific end-user, data extracted from the battlefield areas represent two major categories: information requiring and subject to further analyses, ...

RESEARCH IS DIRECTED AT TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE SURFACE MORPHOLOGY IN SILICON ON INSULATOR (SOI) WAFERS PREPARED BY ZONE MELTING RECRYSTALLIZATION (ZMR). THE THREE AREAS OF PRIMARY IMPORTANCE IN IMPROVING THE SURFACE MORPHOLOGY OF ZMR PROCESSED WAFERS ARE: SLIP, BOW AND WARP, AND SURFACE SMOOTHNESS. SLIP IS CAUSED BY THERMALLY INDUCED STRESS THAT RESULTS FROM THE TEMPERATURE GRADIENT IN THE MELT ZON ...