Award Data

Our objective is to develop advanced mediator architectures for efficient electron transfer in enzymatic fuel cells (EFCs) for low power systems. The proposed EFC will leverage ongoing research at both CFDRC and Michigan State University to provide a fully-integrated lightweight, low-cost, manufacturable, and renewable power supply, for various military and civilian applications. EFC systems offer ...

The goal of the proposed research is to develop advanced computational tool for high-fidelity simulations of hypersonic non-equilibrium plasmas. Octree adaptive Cartesian mesh will be used for automatic mesh generation and dynamic mesh adaptation to plasma properties, particularly important for hypersonic flows with strong shock waves, transient laminar and turbulent domains with large gradients o ...

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 ...

The objective of this Phase I project is to evaluate the use of novel Laser Induced Surface Improvement (LISI) techniques to provide surface modification to substrate materials which will provide superior wear resistance in extreme conditions. The specific application of interest is the hypersonic metal-to-metal contact that occurs at high speed test track facilities that can and has lead to catas ...

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 ...

We propose to demonstrate and advance several key aspects of our novel, scalable ammonothermal technology for growth of high quality single crystal gallium nitride. Specifically, we propose to demonstrate a high growth rate and high crystalline quality, to design and analyze a pilot-scale reactor, and to construct and validate a quantitative model to describe the fluid dynamics of the growth envi ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer research project addresses the perception and learning of complex sound patterns within complex auditory scenes. The objective is to model auditory signal processing, pattern recognition and learning in the human auditory system. Our novel approach simulates the nonlinear signal processing that has been observed in auditory physiology. By mimicking functiona ...

Joint Space Operations Center under the United States Strategic Command employs a worldwide network of 29 sensors, known as the Space Surveillance Network (SSN), to track more than 17,000 man-made objects in Earth orbit with sizes 10 centimeters or larger. Decisive Analytics Corporation and the University of Texas Austin Center for Space Research propose an innovate framework for solving stochast ...

Single-reference coupled cluster (SRCC) methods have revolutionized our ability to accurately predict molecular energies and properties. As new developments in theory and computer science extend the application of SRCC methods to larger and larger systems, advancements in coupled cluster methods for studying multi-reference systems have lagged far behind. DECISIVE ANALYTICS Corporation has teame ...

Digital electronics is approaching its limits in meeting the demand for increased processing speeds. Photonics, while promising high processing speed, is lacking integration capacity. Plasmonics promises to combine the information capacity of photonics with the integration density of electronics. The team of Luna Innovations, UCLA and Virginia Tech proposes to develop plasmonic logic devices and c ...