Award Data

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project will develop ultradense, low-power plasmonic integration components and devices for on-chip manipulation and processing of optical signals. Both passive and active components will be studied. Detailed performance predictions will be obtained through finite element modeling (FEM) of the harmonic Maxwell’s equations. The FEM provides detai ...

The design of future hypersonic vehicles requires detailed understanding of flow regimes ranging from rarefied to continuum. Hypervelocity flows are characterized by high temperatures, real gas effects, nonequilibrium chemistry, and ionization. The goal of this project is to develop unified kinetic/continuum solution methods with automatic domain decomposition for a wide range of Air Force applic ...

Higher efficiency solar cells are needed to reduce solar array mass, volume, and cost for Air Force space missions. Intermediate-band quantum-dot (QD) solar cells can yield dramatically higher efficiencies than current multi-junction (MJ) technologies. However, several issues must be addressed to demonstrate manufacturable, high efficiency devices. CFDRC aims to develop: 1) High-efficiency, ligh ...

We propose to develop ultradense plasmonic integrated devices and circuits for optical interconnect compatible with the electronic circuitry. In our proposal, we will employ engineered metallic nanostructures that combine energy concentration by plasmonic lenses and retardation-based plasmonic resonances to even further boost the efficiency of materials exhibiting optical nonlinearity. These plas ...

We apply the theory of partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) to the design of guidance algorithms for controlling the motion of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with on-board sensors for tracking multiple ground targets. While POMDPs are intractable to optimize exactly, principled approximation methods can be devised based on Bellman’s principle. We introduce a new approximation ...

The ever-decreasing size of the electronic microchips and the ever-increasing density of electronic components required to support future Air Force platforms are creating the problem of substantial localized heat generation that can impair component operation. State of the art thermal interface materials (TIMs), that are used to dissipate heat from the source to the spreader in a microchip, are se ...

Quantitative predictions of reactive flow dynamics from large-scale simulations of Liquid Rocket Engines (LRE) appear to be model dependent. Relationships and coupling among the dominant mechanisms most responsible for destabilization are obscured by the complexities of the model and subtle consequences of inherent ad hoc approximations not supported by mathematical rationale. The reliability of ...

The occurrence of combustion instability has long been a matter of serious concern in the development of liquid-propellant rocket engines due to the high rate of energy release in a confined volume in which energy losses are relatively small. Shear layer instabilities and intermittent growth rates of the mixing layer cause fluctuations in the burning rates and result in acoustic waves triggering ...

Combustion stability is an important consideration in the design of liquid rocket engines. While fundamental modes of unstable operation in simple geometries are easily identified using analytical methods, recent times have seen these methods greatly expand in scope, applied in semi-numerical format to increasingly complex geometries and flow situations. Much remains to be explored in understandin ...

Recent advances in THz-source stability, power and practicality have opened the door for active THz imaging in both commercial and military settings. AEgis is teaming with U Buffalo to develop a THz detection device that utilizes classical rectification effects in semiconductor point contacts (SPCs) to achieve response in the 1 to 10 THz range and is capable of operating at temperatures over 150 K ...