Award Data

X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy is a widely used and extremely sensitive analytical technique for qualitative as well as quantitative chemical analysis. Superconducting Transition Edge Sensor (TES) microcalorimeter detectors have now been developed that achieve an energy resolution of 2 eV (full width at half maximum) for 1.5 keV X-rays, which is sufficient to enable the measurement of the small s ...

Defense Electronics Corporation (DEC) proposes an innovative radiation hardened by design (RHBD) and reliability improvement solution for silicon, III-V compounds (e.g. SiGe, SiC, GaN, InP, GaAs,), carbon nanotubes (CNT), and graphene. The method is based on analyzing chip-partitioned quiescent current signatures associated with failure modes common to these process technologies. Furthermore, the ...

The NIST patented six-degree of freedom micropositioner technology associated with this subtopic has been identified by E M Optomechanical, Inc. (EMOM) as a technology that could be incorporated into the company¿s long-working distance interference microscopes. A key element in these microscopes is a piezo-actuator device, installed in a manual pitch/yaw mount, which translates a small flat mirro ...

This proposal concerns the detection of Special Nuclear Materials (SNM) by using large networks of small, inexpensive, and robust gamma detectors. These detectors will be deployed where consistent surveillance would be difficult by any other means, like remote mountain trails. The proposal describes a novel gamma detector that is extremely robust and inexpensive. The new scintillation material is ...

The Defense Special Weapons Agency (DSWA) has identified a need to improve the radiation hardness of advanced integrated circuit technologies. To be practical, this must be achieved in a cost effective way. This proposal by AET, Inc. directly addresses these concerns. Specifi-cally, this proposal provides a means to achieve significant advance in radiation hardness of large scale integrated cir ...

The nuclear weapons community has traditionally focused on the next generation or level of weapon capability complimented by gathering and analysis of actual test data. Now, with the cessation of actual weapons testing, there is an increased need to use the actual test data in modeling techniques to better understand the phenomenology and potential effects of nuclear weapons. The first phase of ...

Turbulence of gas flows by its very nature is one of the most difficult things to model and measure. We propose to develop a new way of measuring the turbulence and to compare these measurements to predictions using the k-epsilon model. Typical measurements, in the past, use smoke, Schlierin or shadow graph techniques to visually infer turbulence characteristics. These features are either motio ...

The near-field scanning optical microscope can supply information on the shape and electrical properties of surfaces with nanometer resolution. The quantitative interpretation of images is difficult because of the difficulty of electromagnetic field solutions in the near-field limit. We propose to supply software to aid in this analysis. The finite-element programs generate two and three-dimension ...

A growing number of fire fighters are suffering third degree burns; this has led to questions about the adequacy of thermal protective performance (TPP) measurements for protective clothing. A new heat flux sensor, whose response approximates that of skin, will be developed to provide better measurements of heat transfer in TPP tests. This sensor will be used with nonlinear parameter estimation an ...

As fire protection engineering moves towards the implementation of performance- based fire codes, the use of validated fire models is becoming a necessity. Part of the validation process involves demonstrating model capabilities for predicting key fire environment parameters. One of the key parameters for estimating time to ignition and fire growth is the heat transfer rate to compartment surfaces ...