Award Data

The objective of this proposal is to demonstrate the novel type of mode selection for high power lasers for target tracking and interception. In Phase I, LPTI proved the concept of volume Bragg gratings (VBGs), which were recorded in photo-thermo-refractive (PTR) glass, as effective selectors of transverse modes for pulsed neodymium laser. Dramatic narrowing of angular divergence of Nd:YAG laser w ...

Photonic approaches are attractive for next generation computing and communication systems. In particular, photonic switch matrix is useful for reconfigurable optical interconnection of several high-speed computing systems for missile defense applications. Existing switching device architectures requiring N2 cascaded matrix switching elements for N x N non-blocking switching limits the scalabilit ...

Advanced Materials Technology, Inc responds to the DoD needs to develop novel polymer-based materials for aerospace mirror applications in missile defense systems. Compared to the current state-of-art mirror materials, polymeric materials will provide considerable weight and cost savings. In order to prevent significant figure error and "fiber print through", these materials should have low and ...

The Air Force has demonstrated that a water is capable of extinguishing comparable H2O2 oxidizer fires with 23 pounds of water vs 67 pounds of halon. Recent advances in sensor technology make it possible to detect an H2O2 leak prior to ignition, or to rapidly detect ignition in order to initiate fire protection system water flow. Recent findings by Streamline Automation also indicate that fire e ...

A specialty coating, adaptable to existing and future modular MDA target systems and survivable in exo-atmospheric environments, may be achieved by combining contemporary indium tin oxide (ITO) appliqués onto a surface capable of achieving luminescence and hue levels found in adjacent backgrounds. This active coating will exploit known vulnerabilities found in interceptor infrared and visual scan ...

Advanced Materials Technology, Inc responds to the DoD needs to develop an innovative robust thermal insulation technology to insulate cryogenic temperature-sensitive space systems and components. Sensitive cryogenic structures and their subsystems need to be protected from direct solar heating, earth's albedo, and internal heating. The Current state-of-art insulation technology is totally based ...

Hypersonic missile defense systems are being designed to reach global threats. During flight, external surfaces are predicted to reach temperatures in excess of 2200C. As a result, innovative, high performance thermal protection systems (TPS) are of great demand. Among ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTC), it is well known that ZrB2- and HfB2-based materials have high melting temperatures and ...

Higher efficiency solar cells are needed to reduce mass, volume, and cost of DoD space missions. However, to achieve higher efficiency and radiation hardness of the best to date multi-junction photovoltaic (PV) devices, several challenges must be addressed. This project aims to develop: 1) Quantum Well (QW)-based multi-junction cell that exhibits enhanced efficiency, and 2) Radiation-hardened PV c ...

Gallium Nitride (GaN) substrates are ideal materials for fabrication of high-power and high-frequency devices based on III-V materials. The current state-of-the-art Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) methods are plagued by several challenges, including, surface charge affects due to surface contamination, and sub-surface damages, which can limit the quality of III-V devices. Furthermore, there is ...

Antimony containing III-V semiconducting compounds are particularly attractive for the fabrication of a wide variety of electronic and optoelectronic devices such as photo detectors operating in the long wave infrared wavelength (12-32µm) range. The production of epi quality GaSb wafers still remains one of the important problems for rapid commercialization of GaSb devices. Sinmat Inc. proposes a ...