Award Data

Light scatter has been used to map and size particles on silicon wafers for many years, producing accurate maps of particle position and giving an indication of particle size, but do not reveal any information about particle composition. Today's technology is limited by noise, precluding detection of the smallest particles of interest. Present instruments are not adequate for the next generation ...

We will test the feasibility of a compact absolute gravimeter for use in rugged field environments such as ocean floors and the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. The accuracy of the measurement should be better than 5x10^-7 m/s^2 (10 uGal) in an observing period of 24 hours. Phase I will show the feasibility of a new miniature optical design and fringe detection system. We will demonstrat ...

Tritium is handled routinely at laboratories in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Europe. There are several applications for nondestructive assay of solid tritium-contaminated samples including environmental clean-up, routine assay of tritium handling equipment, assay of fuel elements used by fusion reactors including the proposed ITER reactor, and routine monitoring of fission reactor core m ...

Effective, 3 dimensional measurements of phenomena associated with coastal processes such as frontal mixing and tidal flow require spatially separated measurements of several physical and optical variables as well as determination of directional transport in the water column. Phase I work proposes initial development of a rugged, multi-purpose physical/optical sensor platform-transport meter capa ...

Lidar systems offer considerable promise for the acquisition of a variety of atmospheric variables with very high spatial and temporal resolution from airborne platforms. Ground-based lidar systems have been demonstrated that measure aerosols, water vapor, and ozone, and airborne windsensing lidar have been flown on several military aircraft. The growing number of commercial airliners, however, of ...