Award Data

The fabrication of highly efficient Faraday-active optical waveguide structures is proposed. Faraday-active waveguides are presently of great interest as their development is the critical enabling technology associated with the demonstration of an all-fiber optical circulator. Such devices, which may be characterized as multiport nonreciprocal polarization rotators, provide a means by which the te ...

The utilization of composite materials is vital in achieving the objectives of our nation's missile defense programs. However, composite materials can develop micro-cracking and other flaws that are difficult to detect. The need fornon-destructive-testing (NDT) and evaluation (NDE) of composite materials is critically important as structural integrity must be monitored in missile systems while at ...

The objective of this proposal is to further explore PbSnSe detector array on Si substrate. Two approaches are proposed. One is a zero-risk incremental advance that employs a new growth condition to reduce the dislocation density. Another approach is a novel fabrication technique with high-risk but it could enable revolutionary rather than evolutionary advances. IV-VI semiconductors such as Pb1-x ...

HgCdTe, with its high quantum efficiency, remains the material of choice for most high-performance infrared detector applications. By varying its alloy composition, HgCdTe can be used for short wavelength to very long wavelength infrared (VLWIR); however, its use in VLWIR (12-16 microns) applications is problematic, even when grown on lattice-matched CdZnTe substrates, due to material and substrat ...

The yield and operability of high performance infrared detectors, particularly those based on HgCdTe, are severely compromised by materials defects. Recently, ARI has demonstrated during its UV hydrogenation process that deuterium effectively ‘decorates’ defects in materials such as ZnCdTe and HgCdTe. In essence, the distribution of deuterium in the sample directly ‘maps’ defects in the ...

Active defects negatively impact the performance of IRFPAs by increasing noise at various levels up to, and including, catastrophic degradation. Evidence indicates that"killer defects"are related to the interaction of open core screw dislocations with impurities that remain after substrate preparation, prior to HgCdTe growth. This impurity diffusion creates a conducting channel that shorts the j ...

For HgCdTe infrared focal plane arrays fabricated on Si substrates, a model has recently been proposed to account for the disparity between the density of failed pixels and the density of dislocations that are present in the HgCdTe junction region. The model distinguishes between active and inactive dislocations and offers a hypothesis that dislocations are active only when they intersect particul ...

Silicon wafers oriented on (112) are the preferred substrates for deposition of mercury cadmium telluride layers by molecular beam epitaxy. Surface defects introduced during polishing of the wafers degrade the quality of the epitaxy and the performance of infrared detectors fabricated within these materials. We propose a process for reducing the density of the defects that are inherent in the si ...

A collaboration between Amethyst Research Inc., University Multispectral Laboratories (a government-owned, contractor-operated nonprofit corporation), and Teledyne Imaging Systems (a large defense contractor) proposes to develop/improve high-performance infrared sensors based on Type II, strained-layer superlattices (SLS). Such sensors offer (theoretical) advantages over state-of-the-art HgCdTe p ...

We will research effective monitoring techniques and begin development of a network appliance that implements cyber monitoring and data collection, while protecting this service using Single Packet Authorization. This fusion of monitoring and proactive protection will provide effective protection for and monitoring of the systems in question. Approved for Public Release | 16-MDA-8917 (15 Novembe ...